


It Goes On

by chillsoya



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Family Issues, Fluff, Heavy Angst, I promise it isn't all sad, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internal Conflict, Like Seriously Slow Burn I'm So Sorry, Look Rudolphus is a dick but he'll get what's coming to him, M/M, Modern Marauders (Harry Potter), Multi, Non-Explicit Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Pregnancy, References to Depression, Rewrite, Slow Burn, Stalking, Unplanned Pregnancy, Weddings, mention of abortion, organised crime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22313959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillsoya/pseuds/chillsoya
Summary: "The stars we are given. The constellations we make."The stars, the Marauders and all that surround them. The constellations their tangled relationships. In the balance of their twenties, between adolescent and adult, between immaturity and maturity, they fall apart and fall back together - no matter the missing pieces.AKA: Sirius and Remus love each other and everyone is having a hard time.Quote by Rebecca Solnit
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Bellatrix Lestrange/Rudolphus Lestrange, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Sirius Black/Rudolphus Lestrange
Comments: 30
Kudos: 39





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Toddlers and Tinder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6057208) by [chillsoya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chillsoya/pseuds/chillsoya). 



> This is a rewrite of an unfinished fic I left to die a while back, called Toddlers and Tinder which you can find on my profile. I'll be leaving that up as a reference. For clarity, 'It Goes On' begins a few years before the beginning of Toddlers and Tinder, and won't necessarily maintain all plot points from the original. The aim is for this to be better written, and updated consistently, while providing more background for the characters and their situations.  
> Please keep an eye on the tags in case there are topics throughout this that may be triggering for you. I'll be adding a trigger warning list specific to each chapter in the notes at the beginning.
> 
> I'd appreciate any and all comments and likes. The comments on the original Toddlers and Tinder are what inspired me to begin again with sharing my writing and working on this particular story. So your words do make a difference!
> 
> Trigger Warnings for Chapter 1:  
> Sex scene in the beginning (fairly brief and non-explicit)  
> Domestic Abuse - physical, mental, emotional (manipulation, controlling behaviour) <\-- Mentioned but not happening During the chapter  
> Unplanned pregnancy  
> Allusions to depression, anxiety

A groan comes from the bathrooms, carrying clearly through to where Remus lies supine on his bed. He looks away from the crack in the ceiling he’s been eyeing for the last five minutes in a kind of daze, propping himself up on his elbows. He’s still shirtless, silver scars catching in the dim light of his lamp, the curtains still closed at 11am.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, voice rough with sleep. God, he needs to get up and do his assignment… He hasn’t even looked at it this weekend.   
“I look bloody stupid is what’s wrong,” Tonks grumbles, a clatter of something falling into the sink before she shuts the bathroom door and comes into his room. “I haven’t had my hair a ‘normal’ colour since I was 13.”

Remus tilts his head at her with a wry smile as he appraises her. He can tell she’s in a mood about it without her having said so, with how her thick eyebrows are knitted together and the downturn of her usually cheerful mouth. Her hair, mostly dry now, is falling down around her shoulders in dark curls. So dark they almost look black.

“Then why’d you dye it?” he asks, stifling a yawn. She gives him a deadpan look and crosses the room to wrench the curtains over.   
“You  _ know  _ why. Mum told me to.”   
“Hmm,” he hums, noncommittal. He might have forgotten - he’s still half asleep so he isn’t sure. Tonks glares at him.   
“All of this palaver because of some stupid family reunion she already knows will go badly. She just wants one last chance for her parents to accept her, I get that, but  _ god  _ don’t drag me into it!”

And so the rant begins again.

Remus gets it, truly. He feels bad for her, in fact, and he wishes she didn’t have to go through all this for something ill fated. But he didn’t think it was such a bad thing that Andromeda wanted to try and see her parents again, given that it’s been decades or something. Maybe they’ll finally see eye to eye on something, even if it’s only on what tea leaves to brew. Then again, he isn’t personally acquainted with much of her family - just her cousin, Sirius, his best friend.

“I mean, am I meant to call them grandpa and grandma? Grandmother and grandfather? It sounds dumb when I say it. My accent isn’t posh enough.”   
“You got that from your dad,” Remus observes with a cheeky grin, and Tonks casts him a smile through the mirror she stands before. Her hands are on the hem of her tank top, about to pull it up and off. Remus watches her with too much interest, and she quirks a brow at him when she notices it.   
“Right. He’s got the northern accent and all, mum’s the one who’s all upper class.” Tonks grunts something about ‘poshies’ as she removes her top and tosses it to the floor, as usual uncaring of the mess she always seems to make whenever she visits.

“Yes, yes, I know… Hey, you’ve got something on you, come here.”

His hand skates up her flank, touching the bare skin over her ribs. She shivers, and tilts her head at him.   
“If I ask what I have on me, are you going to be cheesy and tell me it’s your hands?”

Remus smiles angellicaly.   
“I’ve only got one hand on you.”

That earns him a wallop, but before either of them process it she’s on his lap, straddling his thighs and leaning in and she still has morning breath but he doesn’t really mind. Especially when she’s on her hands and knees a few minutes later and he’s taking her from behind and she looks delicate but broad enough, her hair dark enough, that she looks just like - 

“Sirius, stop picking off all the mushroom and flinging it over the room.”

Remus watches Sirius with disdain as he wiggles another bit of mushroom out of the cheese toppings and flicks it towards the pizza box, missing by a long shot so that it soars over the top and onto the living room floor. James snorts.   
“Shite aim, mate,” he mutters, and Remus rolls his eyes.   
“Don’t laugh, you’ll just encourage him,” he complains, and Sirius smiles brightly at him even with tomato sauce smeared next to his lips. How does he still look charming like that?

Tonks is out with her parents tonight, but she hadn’t been feeling well that morning. Remus felt guilty he hadn’t felt more reluctant to see her go, knowing she was going to see her dreaded grandparents who had disowned Andromeda two decades ago. But it was good to see the other guys for a bit, especially since Sirius was so hard to reach these days…

There were two visible bruises this time. One like a bracelet around one fine-boned wrist, yellowing, and the other a graceful arc under his eye, following the curve of his cheekbone. Remus feels his blood boiling. James is eyeing them like a hawk as well, clearly wanting to say something. As for Peter, he’s so absorbed in stuffing pizza into his mouth that he hardly seems to notice. Remus’s eyebrow twitches at the way Sirius keeps pulling down his sleeves and rearranging his hair as if that will cover what that fucking  _ monster  _ has done to him.

“Looks sore,” Remus points out, flatly. Sirius freezes just before flicking another piece of mushroom, and it plops unceremoniously onto the floor. Definitely going to leave a stain.

“Um… It’s not too bad,” Sirius mumbles, staring at the mushroom between his feet as if it’s of utmost interest. James winces, a look communicated to Remus over the top of Sirius’s head. Remus sighs, and tries to plaster on an encouraging smile instead. His hand meets Sirius’s arm, and the way his best friend automatically flinches makes him want to cry.

“You know we’re always here… If you ever need somewhere to go.” James adds, as Remus and Sirius make eye contact, Sirius looking guilty, so guilty, and Remus’s eyes blank because he’s suppressing so many emotions. He can’t let them show just now.

Sirius glances over at Peter for a moment before shaking his head and Remus removes his hand, retreating into his assigned space on the sofa. It seems odd, for Sirius to look at Peter like that, as if checking if he’s listening… Remus looks at the blonde thoughtfully. Peter’s barely said two words, watching his pizza intently, seeming exhausted and drawn. He’s been like that since they graduated. He casts a look at James, and James just shrugs.

“I’m fine,” Sirius adds, after that long pause, his voice small and weak. Remus bites his lip on the words he wants to say and looks away.

It’s all too hard to cope with.

-

Tonks is sitting curled up on the sofa, her forehead resting on her knees. Remus asked her what she wants for dinner about ten minutes ago but she didn’t respond, just sat there, in her own world. He thought she was sleeping until he saw her eyes were open - she never sleeps with her eyes open or anything like that.

“Tonks.”

Finally, like resurfacing from far beneath the waves, Tonks looks up. Her eyes are rimmed red and she looks exhausted. Remus frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

She sighs, shakes her head and stands up. Remus thinks he’ll be entirely ignored, hearing her rustle around in the bathroom for a minute before returning. And then she’s back in the living room and something clatters off the side of the coffee table and onto the floor. Remus stares at it for a second and then leans down and picks it up.

Two lines.

His brow furrows a little, and then he tilts it this way and that as if his eyes are deceiving him. But no…

“I’m pregnant.”

It feels like nothing at first. A pause, a half beat and then, it’s like the world is ending. Remus is shaking, Tonks is just staring at him and then she starts to cry-

“I-I don’t know what to do-”

It feels like years later, Remus seeming almost catatonic with his arm protectively around Tonks’ shoulders. She’s still shaking, her knees up to her stomach, and Remus thinks he might fall apart because god, he’s too young, she’s too young - 

The pregnancy test sits like an accusation on the coffee table and Remus couldn’t feel worse. Because he knows that on that occasion, when she had been complaining about her hair, and he had taken her from behind and he had been thinking of him instead.

How fucked up is that?

-

Lily sighs and stretches, staring at herself in the mirror while the stylist fusses around her. She can hear her mother talking to Marlene on the other side of the curtain, nattering away about the pros and cons of a long bridal train. They’ve been talking about all the small details of dresses and all the wedding trimmings. In truth Lily is sick of it - she can only discuss wine and ways of folding napkins and tablecloth colours for so long before she feels like she’s going to lose her mind.

Even now she wishes she could be in work dealing with a patient’s unsavoury health issues rather than having her ribs crushed by another corset only to have the air whoosh back in at the resounding ‘no’ and the next dress be brought out like a conveyor belt-

God she’s tired. She wants to take a nap. Would the stylist mind if she took a break and napped on the chaise longue nestled against the opposite wall? They could try work out clothes for her mother and bridesmaids rather than, well, this.

No such luck. She groans as the curtain is pulled back and she sees the look of disdain on her mum’s face. Another no, then. Marlene is surprisingly less fussy, seeming to think that Lily looks absolutely stunning in every single dress, but good lord if Penelope Evans isn’t the most pernickety person to bring with her to a dress fitting.

“It just… the dress is even lighter than you are, darling, it brings out all the red undertones -” 

“Shush, shush, just let me get changed. I want a KFC, good lord.”   
“Lily, you’re a vegetarian,” Dorcas points out after half a beat, and Lily glowers at her. “Or maybe not today? Please don’t hurt me.”   
“I’ll do as I please. Aren’t I supposed to be a bridezilla by now? I feel like you’re the godzillas here.”

Her mother tuts and shoos her away to get into the next dress. Lily wants to rip the bloody stupid taffetta off the damn thing, but if it’s enough to quiet her mum for a bit then she supposes she can withstand it.

“Really, she’s got such a temper-” her mum mutters, affection clear in her tone even with the chiding words, and Marlene’s laugh rings out clear as a bell.   
“I think she gets that from you, Mrs Evans -”   
“Oh, really, call me Penny.”

Well, at least they’re getting on. Lily wants to ditch all of them now and run off to bloody Peru rather than see one more dress flop flaccid out of the plastic, awaiting her approval. She barely knows a damn thing about fashion - 

Just as she’s about to lift her arms to allow the stylist to slide the dress over her head, her phone rings. Lighting up at the prospect of hearing something not-wedding related, Lily jumps off the platform in her knickers and bra, runs to the device without a thought for decency and grabs her phone, answering the call.

“Lils, you done with the fitting?”   
“I fucking wish,” she hisses, and James laughs at the other end but it sounds strained. She straightens up, face creasing with a frown. “What’s wrong?” She holds a hand up to the stylist, and the woman shrugs and goes off to clear up some of the dresses they’ve already tried. The sheer amount of them must weigh a lot and Lily has half a mind to ask her how much she works out.

“It’s about-”   
“Is it Sirius? Is he okay?”   
“It’s not him, no,” James sighs and Lily feels herself deflate. That’s a relief. But then-   
“It’s Remus and Tonks. I was going to let Remus tell you himself but he can’t even get the words out. Tonks is pregnant.”

“I- WHAT?”

Lily barges out from behind the curtains to the shock of her mum and friends, still in her underwear. She can vaguely hear the stylist protesting from behind her, but pays it no mind. Her intention is to get a notebook and pen out of her pocket to try and ask Marlene if she had heard about this already, but her bag is more than a bit of a mess and she ends up just crouching by her bag in her knickers, her mum staring at her as if she’s grown a second head.

“Basically Remus is freaking out and so is she. Because neither of them feel ready but she doesn’t want an abortion because -”   
“God, don’t tell me her parents are pro-life or something,” Lily groans, glancing up when she felt Marlene gently draping an oversized coat around her shoulders to cover the redhead up. She smiled her thanks, only just realising quite how underdressed she was given that she was in plain view of the shop windows.

“I dunno, maybe?” James sighs. Lily grumbles and sits down on the carpet with her legs crossed, palming her hair from her face. “But Remus is… Well, you know.”   
“In love with someone else?” Lily asks archly, and James hums noncommittally. He’s better at keeping his nose out of their business than Lily is, simply by not saying anything when it comes up.

“What can I do?” she finally asks with a sigh, wondering what was so urgent James felt the need to tell her this in the middle of this blasted fitting. Usually he would have waited until afterwards.

“Maybe just… Talk to Remus. He listens to you more than me, after all,” James sighs, and Lily snorts.   
“That’s just good sense,” she points out, and James makes a noise of indignation before he apologises for interrupting the fitting and rounds up the call.

Feeling quite shell-shocked, Lily stays seated on the floor for a moment, the eyes of Dorcas, Marlene and her mum on her curiously. She wonders if she ought not to tell them? But then they’ll doubtless find out anyway…

“Nymphadora’s pregnant,” she explains, tucking her hair behind her ears, and Marlene and Dorcas express open shock at the news. Her mum just tilts her head.   
“Nimahdora?” she repeats, and Lily places a palm on her forehead in disdain.   
“ _ No, _ mum, Nym- you know what, just call her Tonks.”

Penny Evans pulls a face that reads something like ‘well, suit yourself then,’ as Marlene and Dorcas interrogate Lily as if she knows much more than the bare minimum. Eventually the stylist clears her throat and Lily pales, wishing she didn’t have to try on any more dresses. She supposes that her break from the reality of a bride - to hear news ambiguous over if it was good or bad - is over.

-

Sirius winces as the door slams. Thank god he’s gone. He looks for his phone, recently confiscated by his boyfriend, and finds it eventually at the bottom of the sock drawer. As controlling as Rudolphus could be, he wasn’t great at hiding things - especially when mad, since he was often too shortsighted to think of better places than the sock drawer or under the mattress.

It’s been a long day. Rudolphus is in a foul mood and Sirius bore the brunt of it as usual. He feels tired. But he isn’t really sure what else to do.

If nothing else, he gets to be away from the flat for a while tonight. Bellatrix will be coming over to see Rudolphus, and Sirius would usually burn with the humiliation of knowing that his boyfriend is simultaneously ‘seeing’ his  _ cousin  _ due to the pressure of her parents. That the Lestranges were greatly indebted to the Blacks who had bailed out a failed business venture a few years back meant that Sirius’s private life was becoming even more convoluted. But it’s nice to get away for awhile, see his friends. Since they all hate it when they don’t see him often.

What a mess.

He could remember in the beginning, how it had all seemed so perfect. Well, actually, he had known that his aunt and uncle were considering the possible matches for Bellatrix, heiress to their company, and had thought Rudolphus fairly suitable if a marriage with Lucius Malfoy didn’t work out. And after all the pain Bellatrix had put him through, the chance to fall into her possible-could-be-husband’s lap was all too funny. So when he said perfect, he meant that it was a taste of revenge he had been craving. But it had turned around on him and bitten him, and now he was trapped in this relationship, arm twisted behind his back, watching Rudolphus court someone else.

Archaic, as Remus would say. Disgusting, as Lily would say. James said less, but his expression registered pain, worry. Sirius hated seeing them all worry.

The voice in the back of his head kept on murmuring with the cadence of his mother,  _ no one to blame but yourself.  _ Sirius’s face twisted into a frown and he went to the bedroom, checking his texts, seeing several missed calls from James - the reason his phone had been confiscated in the first place, the constant buzzing, the suspicions (“this your other man? slut.”) Placing a duffel on the unmade bed, Sirius packed some clothes into it neatly, wondering if he ought to call back. If he ought to be angry that James had gotten him in trouble.

Pft. Getting him in trouble. Ridiculous, getting in trouble at his age… Discipline at this age was meant to be job related, surely. Not that Sirius was allowed to work.

Looking at the clothes he had packed into the bag - just enough for one night and one day, he’d be back here tomorrow - Sirius felt the itch behind his breastbone again. The one that told him to pack everything and leave. Just go, run, hide with James or Remus or Peter or Marlene, anyone really. Get out of this mess while he still could.

But he couldn’t. Rudolphus needed him. He needed someone who understood how shit the Black family were, who could empathise when another meeting with Cygnus went badly because Sirius’s uncle was never pleased. Needed someone to clean up because Rudolphus was so busy with work, and someone to cook… It was the kind of life that Sirius had pitied his female ancestors for. The sort that he had thought of with contempt. He had never understood how anyone could let it happen. How could anyone be so weak, as to land themselves in this position?

But that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t weakness. It was a trap, a snare that tightened and threatened to cut circulation entirely if struggled against. Sirius knew now that it wasn’t weakness that lead to people being abused, nor a lack of bravery… But he still didn’t know  _ why.  _ Why him…? It had to be Rudolphus’s way of showing love, right?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2: Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for chapter 2:  
> Mentions of running away  
> Blood mentions  
> Minor injury  
> Verbal abuse  
> Emotional abuse  
> Family issues  
> Mentions of abusive relationship  
> Minor injury from physical abuse  
> Smoking  
> Victim blaming (self victim-blaming) (low-key)  
> Homophobia  
> Transphobia  
> Ableism (mental health)  
> Blackmail/bribery  
> Drinking (wine)  
> Mentions of abortion (and mentions of a pro-life character)  
> Mention of nausea/vomiting  
> Pregnancy

Andromeda presses her hands flat on her double breasted coat, flattening it out against her abdomen. She has been cursing herself all morning, tired after staying up late drinking wine and reading on her kindle. Her work at the museum isn’t overly demanding - she has run those circuital tours day in and day out for several years now, taking the odd questions of preschoolers, pretentious questions of students, all with a smile on her muted pink lips.

Of course, she wasn’t always only recently out of a disastrous family meeting when she walked through the Tudors displays of the Museum of Oxford. Somehow it set her more on edge. Surely her family knew where she worked, where she lived, even if she had been so careful not to tell them? She winces, stroking her hair from her forehead and pulling her bare feet up underneath her on her favourite, slightly battered armchair.

Ted will be home soon. She tries to reassure herself that things will feel more stable when he is here. They always are. Sometimes this little Oxford house feels like it’s built on shifting sands and the floor shakes and the walls seem fit to crumble around her. Memories of her childhood that she tries to cut out of her mind like tumours. Her therapist, since fired, had advised she try to speak to her parents again, rekindle a normal familial relationship.

That went well.

Touching two manicured fingertips to the bandages over the palm of her hand, Andromeda sighs and shakes her head. She feels too old and too young simultaneously. A symptom of having a child as young as she had? She had only been 16. It was a mistake…

Nymphadora. That girl… So like Ted, so terrible at minding the intricacies of interacting with people like Cygnus and Druella Black. Should Andromeda have tried harder to educate her? No… She vowed when she fell pregnant that her baby’s childhood would be nothing like her own.

Daisy meows from the door to the living room, and Andromeda perks up, setting down her cup of coffee, half finished and long gone cold.  
“Come here, baby girl, come see mummy,” she smiles, and Daisy obeys, a surprisingly obedient cat (unlike their other, wiley cat named Duke). The bundle of fur curled up on her lap purring loudly, Andromeda sighs, checks her watch and then her phone. As if on cue, the front door opens, and Daisy lifts her head drowsily towards the noise but doesn’t shift.

“Hey, poppet,” Ted calls, in the hallway as he hangs up his coat. Andromeda feels like she’s deflating. The day was harder than she realised, and she has been holding herself together by sheer force of will.  
“Hi, Ted,” she returns, a little shaky. Ted comes in then, looks at her with concern and fondness, and Andromeda lifts a hand for him to come and hug her despite the immovable cat on her lap.

He smells like home. She wonders if she smells like home to him.

“How’s your hand?” he asks, taking the hand in question, bandaged, and she shrugs.  
“S’fine. Same as yesterday.”  
“And you really don’t want to get it checked at the doctor’s?”  
“Yes, I really don’t. You know how I feel about doctors.”  
“Aye, of course, but…”

Ted gnaws on his lip before shaking his head and letting it go, pressing a kiss to the rough gauze instead. Andromeda watches him with a weary smile. He always understood her. He always let it go when it needed to be let go.

The cut on her palm in question was one of the several injuries (though the only physical one) from the meeting with Druella and Cygnus, her parents. Words gone awry, insults tossed, Nymphadora’s scowl deepening as jibes were thrown her way continuously. Andromeda, caught between defending her daughter and trying to follow the advice of her therapist to be amicable with her parents. Ted, anger percolating over the minutes, trying to remain courteous as a son-in-law should, but struggling heroically to keep his daughter sane. Then, the comment by Cygnus, delighting in the discomfort and upset he was causing, ‘since your parents never intended to have you, even less so wanted to,’ and Nymphadora’s heart seeming to crack a little in insecurity. Andromeda’s hand tightened on the fragile glass, more than she thought herself capable, the glass cracking and a shard cutting into her hand, the blood dripping onto her lap.

Ruining her white skirt, of course. Typical. It’s still waiting to go to the dry cleaners.

It was a convenient end to the meeting. Andromeda, well shamed, hand wrapped in a doubtlessly expensive tea towel, Ted, red in the face and holding his wife around her waist as she shivered her way over the lawn, Nymphadora sulking to the car biting back tears and curses. Cygnus and Druella not even seeing them out. The next day, Andromeda firing her therapist with her hand swathed in bandage.

Nymphadora had burned the tea towel in the incredibly old stove, glowering into the flames as the fabric let off a pungent scent, curling and charring at the edges. She said she felt sick. She looked sick. Ted felt her forehead and said she was clammy, stroked her hair back when she started throwing up. Andromeda sat quiet and still in the living room like a doll, wondering if there was something wrong with the food and that was why Dora had taken ill.

Never mind. It was done now.

“What’s on your mind?” Ted asks, whisking the dirty dishes Andromeda left on the side table away to the kitchen, kicking the cat-shaped door stopper in the way of the kitchen door closing so he can still hear her. She sighs dramatically, rearranges a little which sends Daisy sulking off. She brushes errant strands of cat hair from her tights and angles her body towards the kitchen.

“Just Dora. She said she would let us know when she felt better, after being so sick the other day after dinner. It’s been nearly a week now and still nothing…”

Ted pokes his head out, tea towel in hand.  
“M’sure she just felt better the next morning and forgot, like. She’ll have just been stressed, Andy.”

Ted’s low, strong Irish accent always lulled Andromeda’s anxieties to sleep, but in this instance the nerves were still itching, making her fingers automatically crawl over the armchair to her phone. Maybe a few more texts would jog her daughter’s memory…

“It was pretty disastrous,” she concedes, trying to sound flippant because Ted will tell her not to keep bothering the poor girl with texts after texts if he thinks she’s going to leave yet another voicemail.  
“You sure knew how to cut a conversation short though,” he laughs, exiting the kitchen with hot cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. He had always been the more nurturing one of the two. Just as Andromeda had been about to send a text she heard him coming, chucking her phone onto the throw as if it were hot. He quirks a brow at her but doesn’t mention it.

“Lady Grey for my grey lady,” he jokes, pressing a kiss next to one storm coloured eye. She smiles bashfully, flapping a hand at him until he backs off with a laugh. The floral scents of the tea curl with the steam around her face. It’s soothing and she holds the cup close, warming herself. Ted sits down on the sofa opposite, across the coffee table.

“So, d’you want t’ talk about it?” he asks after blowing ripples over the surface of his tea. Andromeda tilts her head.  
“What ‘it’?”  
“Y’know, THE it,” he sighs, and she sighs in turn, looking down at her steaming mug for answers.

“Guess since I’ve not got a therapist anymore I’ll resort to you then, eh?” she teases lightly, and Ted smiles.  
“Well, I’ve a good listening ear and I’m even better at talking. How else would I stay in radio?” That coaxes a laugh out of his wife, and he smiles even wider. Success.  
“Right you are.”  
“You can get a new therapist though, y’know.”  
“Yes but… I don’t know, Ted, it’s just… after that mess I’m feeling a bit… introspective. It’s hard to talk. It isn’t his fault, obviously, he didn’t know how fucked up my parents are apparently. But still, I didn’t want to see him after that… I did try and tell him, all the crap they pulled…”

Ted nods his understanding.  
“Still, you need help. I’m always here but I know I’m far from qualified. I want you to be happy, love. And so does Dora. She worries. She really tried for your parents, y’know, we all did but… well, from my entirely unprofessional opinion, maybe you need to let yer parents go?”

Andromeda blinks and a tear drips down from her lashes to her cheek. God, she feels a right mess. She used to keep it together so well, used to force herself to keep it together for Nymphadora but after her daughter moved out and she didn’t just have to be a mum anymore, could be her own person, come back to her own identity, she realised how shattered her childhood had left her. She had exited her childhood early, running away when she got pregnant, and then all of a sudden she found herself an incomplete person once the last of the moving boxes were into Nym’s new dorm. And then she had started falling apart. And now… this.

“I thought I had. But I’ll keep trying.” Ted kneels down before her, setting her tea aside and taking her hands into his bigger, rougher ones.  
“I know you will. And I know you’ll succeed. For me, and for Dora, until you learn to do it for yourself.”

\-------

In the end Sirius only took clothes for one night and a day. As much as he wanted to run, he didn’t feel ready. Would he ever be ready? It wasn’t easy to tell. Thinking of the inevitable end of his relationship with Rudolphus always brought on such mixed feelings… it definitely did have to end, though. Especially once Rudy got married to his cousin, which seemed ever more likely as the weeks passed.

Never mind that, though. This is his night off, his escape. He wants to think about and talk about his relationship as little as possible. He jumps off the tube at the station closest to James’s place, his shitty bachelor pad that would soon be packed away and abandoned. James and Lily are moving in together at the end of the month, just a small, affordable rent while they are in the run up to the wedding, and then saving for a mortgage.

Sirius climbs the concrete stairs with familiarity, jumping the one that has been crumbling back since he used to live here too, swinging himself on the railing around the corner on the second floor and walking towards the battered maroon affair that is the front door, 9 hanging crooked and the tattered remnants of a ‘6’ sticker peeling next to it. He rings the door bell then lets himself in.

Even after a couple of years, Sirius still expects to open the door and smell cheap vodka, Chinese takeaway leftovers, burnt oven chips and tarry cigarette smoke. This place had been a real hovel once, as any flat occupied by three uni students would. Pete was later to start uni, still in a dorm when Sirius and Remus both stayed here. Now it was only James and Peter who occupied the flat, but with Pete working night shifts he was usually either in bed or out at work, or at a uni class. 

James hollers from the kitchen, over the sizzling of something in a pan. Sirius kicks off his boots and chucks his jacket on top of them, dumping his bag alongside before heading through. James smiles brightly but his eyes are like a hawk’s, searching Sirius for new bruises. There’s an embarrassing hickey on his neck, surprisingly big, and a scratch just by his ear from a half-dodged swipe by Rudolphus when he was drunk. James sighs, looks down at the onions he’s frying,

“Have you already cleaned that?” he asks, and Sirius shakes his head. It hadn’t been long before Rudy stormed out, so he hadn’t even bothered apart from smudging off the blood gathering in the torn skin. It isn’t that serious. He’s fine. Of course, James still shoos him to sit at the breakfast bar and brings the first aid kit once he’s taken the onions off the heat, daubing the cut with antiseptic that hurt more than the scratch itself. Once it’s clean he finally backs off and gets to work on the rest of the stir fry.

“Bought the smokes like you asked,” James points out, gesturing to the pack sitting on the side table. Sirius nods, unwraps it and takes on out, swanning over to the gas hob and swooping down to light it in the blue flame, holding his hair out of the way while James swats him with an oven mitt. “Have you got to smoke in the flat?” he complains, and Sirius rolls his eyes, switching on the extractor fan.  
“As if you weren’t already burning the dinner and filling the place up with smoke, anyway,” Sirius retorts, gesturing to the badly blackened edges of the onion that James had left sizzling in oil and had now put on the heat again with the other vegetables despite their different cooking times. James groans and flips him off, pointing to the kitchen window with a scowl.

“I know why you want me to get them, but I don’t like you smoking either, mate,” James grumbles, and Sirius flicks ash out the window defiantly.  
“Yeah, but god knows I can’t cope with all the shit without them. Stealing smokes when he’s sleeping, hiding the pack down the back of the of the bookshelf like a teenager, sticking nicotine patches under my arms - fucking hassle.”

James chews his lip, tossing the noodles and grabbing the sauce to finish the dinner off. He doesn’t need to ask what Rudolphus would do if he caught Sirius smoking.  
“Isn’t he, uh, getting a bit less hands-on yet, since he’s not always around, and, y‘ know, seeing Bellatrix and stuff?”

Sirius casts his gaze to the side and shakes his head.  
“If anything it’s worse. Can’t blame him - Bella’s fucking infuriating, and she’d have his hands cut off he tried to raise them to her,” he points out. James could pull his own hair out - how could anyone NOT blame Rudolphus, contrary, psychopath cousin or not?

“He should consider raising his hands to an actual punching bag for once then,” James mutters, unusually irate about it considering he does his best to not upset Sirius by pressuring him. Sometimes he really does feel useless for not being able to save Sirius from this, though.

When Sirius doesn’t reply, just smokes and watches the cars go by, James sighs and changes the subject.

“Ready for food? Thought we could watch the football while we eat, kick off was five minutes ago…”  
At least that gets a smile out of Sirius, who used to have aspirations of being a professional footballer in high school and maintained his passion - even if the sports channel was basically off limits in his own flat because Rudolphus called it ‘lowbrow noise’. Soon enough, he and James are sitting on the sofa with pasta bowls full of stir fry that tastes surprisingly good despite the burnt onions, watching Chelsea play Tottenham and jeering and cheering as if everything is right with the world.

\--------------

Peter gulps and looks away from the burning eyes of his Unofficial Employers. He doesn’t want to tell them what they want to hear. Don’t shoot the messenger, and all.

“I never really see him these days,” he mumbles, shrugging. He isn’t much a convincing liar. “He’s got some guy or something, always with him…”

Rudolphus catches his eye over the room and grits his teeth. They have a deal. Peter will be totally and unequivocally screwed if he tells them. Rudolphus will make sure of it.

“Still a damn homo,” Cygnus swears under his breath, and Bellatrix smiles slowly, like butter wouldn’t melt.  
“Daddy dearest, I don’t see why we need him,” she croons, and Cygnus eyes her wearily. “You know Rudy and I will be more than competent in running the company. No disrespect meant to Uncle Orion, but his two clearly aren’t right in the head. Could you even trust them to hold a 1% share and not mess it all up?”

Cygnus pinches the bridge of his nose, glancing at the clock. Peter shifts in his seat across the table from the richest man he’s ever been within ten feet of.  
“Orion is adamant that since Cassiopeia won’t settle down and marry as she should, then Sirius will be sought out and corrected as needed. It’s a lot of covert work to get through, or I wouldn’t be dealing with this useless little rat,” here he gestures to Peter, who flushes with shame, “but if Orion wishes it then I’d better do it or Wally will have my neck.”

“We should just be glad that Alphard has been taken care of. Out of sight, out of mind. Imagine the kind of kids he’d have brought up,” snorts Lucretia, twirling a diamond around her finger by the gold band. Cygnus shoots her a glare.  
“Have some decency,” he reminds her, and she scowls and picks up her wine glass.

“Will I really have to deal with ickle Sirius again?” Bellatrix whines, “Can’t we look for Cassiopeia? If we sort her out, that’d be better. She was always much easier to order about.”  
“Emphasis on was, Bella,” Cygnus grunts. “She’s swanning out pretending to be a man now. Can’t get a lick of sense into her, by word or by belt. Orion tried, so did Wally. I’ve no patience for that sort. She can play dress up as much as she wants.”

Then, turning to Peter, he smiles in the least reassuring manner.  
“You’ll get me Sirius or I’ll be very unhappy. I’ve promised you a good job here once you finish university if you do as I say.”

Peter gulps again, nods and takes his cue to leave.

Some ten minutes later, Rudolphus catches Peter as he walks to the tube station to go to work, pulling up in a sleek black car. He simply nods and Peter gets in the passenger seat, already feeling himself start to sweat.

“You covered for me, so here’s your payment.” Instead of cash, like Peter hoped for, it’s a slip of paper with a phone number scrawled on it in blue biro.  
“What’s this for…?” Peter asks, apprehensive.  
“It’s the number for, let’s say, a ‘friend’ of mine, Tom Riddle. He runs some stuff behind the scenes, but he’s getting bigger and spreading out. Call him and he’ll set you up with something that’ll make you even more money than Cygnus is offering.”

Peter knows he should say thank you, so he does, but this is the last thing he was looking for. Still, he needs the help for his tuition, and he supposes it can’t hurt to see what this Riddle guy has got going on - it doesn’t make him committed to anything, does it?

Later, after work, he calls the number,

\-------------

Lily sighs, pen in hand but only making spirals on her notepad. Marlene, Mary and Dorcas sit around her, in varying states of thought. Pondering.  
“Why do I have to do this anyway? Isn’t this meant to be the bridesmaids’ job?”  
“Maid of honour, traditionally, but you refused to pick one because you said it sounded like picking favourites,” Mary points out with a snort. Lily flips her off and the girls laugh, Marlene reaching over the table to pour more wine for those drinking.

“So my bleeding heart got me roped into planning this then?” Lily complains, and Dorcas nods with a sweet smile.  
“Yep. Also you’re probably the most organised of us, so it helps.”

Marlene takes the notepad off Lily and flips back a page to the prospective guest list.  
“Well you can’t invite Remus, he’s a bloke,” she vetos, scoring Rem’s name out, Lily’s protests falling on deaf ears. “It’s a girls’ night, for goodness sake,” Marlene chides, and Lily crosses her arms and huffs, petulant.

“Shouldn’t we invite Tonks though?” Dorcas asks, craning her neck to see the list. Lily raises a brow before slowly nodding.  
“Guess so, yeah. Never thought her and Rem were serious, but I guess now…”  
“Can’t be something strictly alcohol based, then,” Marlene adds.  
“Good. I don’t drink,” Mary grunts, reaching for her energy drink. Lily laughs at her.  
“I think wine would be better for you than that stuff. Hell, even beer would be better for you than that.”  
“My liver resents that.”

So far the list goes as follows:  
Marlene, Mary, Dorcas, Alice, Emmeline, Amelia, Bertha (sweet lamb that she is), Pandora, Hestia, Petunia (followed by several question marks) and Tonks.

“Seems enough,” Marlene notes, counting the names up. “So now just invites, choosing what to do, choosing a date, setting up venues, maybe a group chat to organise it…”

Lily drops her head to the table. Maybe she should have refused a hen night. Maybe she should ask her wedding planner Appoline for help. Wouldn’t that seem a bit pathetic, though? Gosh…

Mary and Dorcas are giggling together looking like lovebirds on the other side of the table, and Lily huffs a little more against the wooden tabletop. Marlene places a hand on her arm with a soft smile, and the redhead wishes that didn’t make her heart skip a beat.

\----------------

Before Sirius had arrived at the flat, earlier in the day, James had met up with Remus for lunch. Juicy, definitely bad for you burgers from Five Guys with shovel loads of Cajun fries set out on the table like it was the last supper, the two men rubbing their hands together with glee. It was nice to catch up one on one sometimes, but was less of a novelty given how Sirius could rarely join. 

“Pete not coming?” Remus asks, frowning a little. He knows Sirius isn’t free until later and is more than disappointed that he won’t be able to join his best friends for a night in. Though it does mean he doesn’t have to sit through 90 minutes of football, which is a plus.  
“Guess not. I did call him but he seemed off. Like, he actually got snappy when I tried to convince him to come join,”

Remus lifts a brow in surprise. That’s odd. Even though Remus has the languid attitude of an unbothered cat nine times of ten, Peter is definitely the least irritable and snappy of their group. Despite his uni work and job at the hotel he always seems content in his own little world, orbiting around James and Sirius comfortably without much of a complaint as long as he has his Netflix subscription and takeaway menus.

“Something wrong with him?” Rem asks, snagging a chip and stuffing it in his mouth mid question. James shrugs.  
“Dunno. He has been out more, recently. Like, used to only really go to class and work or out with us, and always tells me where he was going even if it was just to the shop. Nowadays he’s a lot quieter though. Doesn’t tell me where he’s off to, just walks out.”

After a few bites in amicable silence, James sighs.

“Do you think it’s because we’re moving out? I told him if he wants to talk to the landlord and get in a few roommates then I don’t care, I’ll just take my name off the contract. I do feel a bit bad…”

Remus waves the concerns away.

“You and Lily are literally getting married. You living in that shithole makes no sense whatsoever. It’s about time you two moved in together,” he points out, and James hums agreement. He can’t really fault such solid advice.

\---------------

A cluttered studio apartment is the generous way of putting it. Remus looks at his bookshelves which seem to spit books into the floor if he doesn’t step lightly, the piles of textbooks and notebooks and books he couldn’t fit on the shelves that are stacked precariously around it. A hermit’s den, by the looks of things, full of odd collections, random artefacts of consuming for the sake of consuming - figurines of pop culture characters, stacks upon stacks of CDs once listened to, or not at all, before the old stereo gave up on life. Not that he got rid of the stereo, it sits, defunct, on a side table gathering dust and trinkets set on top. A collection of dice in a ceramic bowl, glass bottles from beer, tequila, vodka, wine and whiskey that seem to multiply anytime he has friends over, lined up on the window sill. Clusters of coins like offerings, loose change dug out of pockets before the stained jackets are thrown in the wash. Train tickets and bus tickets held by misshapen paper clips, receipts pouring out of envelopes from attempts to budget before being forgotten. A book of stamps on top of a jar of fancy tea he can’t bring himself to drink, chipped mugs and saucers tilted drunk on the drying rack, stained tea towels worn through with holes hung over the oven door. A plate littered with beer caps like multicoloured currency, threadbare blankets by the dozen with no discernible colour pallet, framed pictures waiting to be hung up for over a month lounging forgotten against a slightly damp wall. The bed, chronically unmade, strewn with sweaters decided against before leaving for lunch, and crumpled newspapers open to the crossword and sudoku.

It isn’t exactly the right kind of place to raise a child. He sighs, palms his hair from his face and goes to check his phone. Bathing his face in blue light, he realises he ought to turn the lights on, and as he’s doing so, Tonks knocks on the door and lets herself in.

“Hey,” he smiles softly, but his heart is in his throat and he can tell that hers is too. She looks sick to her stomach with nerves.  
“Hi.”

Unbundled from her winter layers, Tonks sits cross legged on the sofa and Remus slots himself in close to her, thinking to be reassuring in his closeness. But in doing so he only seems to make Nym uncomfortable, shifting against the arm of the sofa. To save face and halt it being too awkward (as if it isn’t already), Remus gets up to make a couple cups of tea and delivers them to a sordid looking Tonks who is staring off into space, somewhere just above the telly.

“Uh, so… Tea,” Remus offers, setting it down in front of her. Tonks finally looks at him properly and manages a weak smile.  
“Thanks.”

It’s a few minutes later when he finally finds more words at the back of his throat. Tonks seems completely lost in thought, and one quivering hand is resting over her stomach absentmindedly. She sips her tea.  
“How are you feeling?” he asks, and she blinks, looks over at him and sighs. In truth she feels furious at him and herself for letting this happen, and yet she does love him… At least, she’s pretty sure she does. They haven’t been together all that long but… She reaches for him and takes his hand, and he looks surprised.

“Uh… I’ve had some morning sickness and stuff, just nausea. Other than that, just mood swings. Tired. Need to pee all the time.” Both of them snicker at that, and then take another drink in tandem.  
“Uh, this might sound dumb but, how many weeks actually are you?”  
“Well, eh… They count it from the first day of the last period. So, it’s been 5 weeks since then. Probably around 3 since we actually, y’know, conceived.” The fact that she actually blushes at that is pretty adorable. Still, 5 weeks? That seems… a lot.  
“Wait -”  
“So technically I’m 5 weeks, and it’s 3 since we shagged, so I’ve only had a - an embryo for 3 weeks.”

Remus hums his understanding.  
“You’ve been doing your reading then,” he muses, and she sighs.  
“And you haven’t?” It sounds a little accusing. He hasn’t, though, so he supposes he may well deserve it.  
“Uh… Well, I’ve been thinking about stuff, y’know, about the practical side of… Stuff.” Eloquent. Really eloquent.

“Practical side of stuff,” Tonks repeats, deadpan, and Remus grumbles. “I mean, I haven’t even decided if I’m keeping it, so there’s no use fussing over stuff until then.”

This is the first time Tonks even suggested aborting the baby, and Remus is a little shocked at the abrupt delivery. He glances at her, uncertain, tilting his head.  
“Um, yeah. I guess so? What have you been thinking of, in terms of that…? Like… Keeping it or not.”

She sets down her cup of tea and drops her head into her hands, looking worn out and overwhelmed. Remus wants to reach for her and hold her close, try and make her feel better, but he can’t. He doesn’t know how to make this better, this mistake that they brought on between them, and he feels guilty because he knows - he knows he isn’t really ready for a kid, and he definitely isn’t ready for one with Nymphadora, who he had always been fairly casual with. Still, does that make him want her to abort it? No, not really… He figures that it just isn’t his choice. He isn’t the one that has to carry it.

He wants to feel resigned to whatever Tonks decides, but either option has implications on his life, her life, and their relationship. Remus wants to be there for her, to help her, but he isn’t sure how to do that. He doesn’t want her to feel pressure from him, to keep or not to keep. Whatever choice she makes, it has to be her own entirely, so that she won’t regret it.

“Dunno. I just… I… Well, look. My mum got pregnant with me when she was 16 and ran away from home to keep me. She didn’t exactly plan to have me, nor did she… want to have a kid. But she wasn’t, uh, well her parents brought her up pro-life or something, so even if she thought everything they told her was bullshit she still felt… Too guilty to go through with it. And so voila, I’m here. Thing is, I don’t know how she, um, feels about abortion now… And… Well, rationally I know it’s not her business, and I could just get an abortion now and never tell her. But then, I hate keeping secrets from her, so…”

“Even so, Tonks, you need to make the choice for yourself…” Remus protests, and she scowls at him.  
“Well what do you want? What choice would you make, Remus?”

He’s left gawping, not sure if he should deflect it and point out it isn’t about him and what he wants, or maybe serve platitudes like he’ll support her either way. By the fear in her eyes behind the scowling facade he does get the impression that maybe she wants his actual opinion, rather than empty words. Maybe that’s the best he can offer.

“I guess… If it was me, like, carrying the baby - because I won’t tell you what to do with your body - but if it were me carrying it, then I’d probably keep it.”

Tonks nods, shakes her head, then nods again and fetches back her mug of tea, finishing it off in long gulps as if for courage. Shrugging, she sets the mug down, rubs her hands together and steels herself.

“I think I want to keep it. I just hope I won’t regret it.”


	3. Chapter 3: Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff gets messy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> Transphobia & misgendering  
> Talk about abortions/pregnancy  
> Physical, verbal, emotional abuse  
> Stalking

“So when are you going to tell him?”

James is hunched over a cardboard box as he speaks, rearranging the protective wrap around his crockery. Plain IKEA plates, a couple pasta bowls, a mug - he doesn’t drink coffee or tea much so he only has one - wrapped in bubble wrap or, when that ran out, newspaper from the free Metros he picked up covertly in bulk from the tube.

Remus is here to help with some packing and cleaning for when James and Peter move out, though the latter is in bed at the moment after a night shift at the hotel. Currently he’s flipping through notebooks upon notebooks, sorting them between the ones that are full and the ones that have empty pages left, so James can decide which ones to chuck.

Looking over the semi-dismantled living room, Remus sits up on his haunches and cracks his back, pulling the sleeves of his jumper down over his hands. It’s February but the windows are thrown open to let air circulate, since they keep kicking up dust as they move things around.

“Dunno. I figured uh, that Tonks should decide on that, or, like, on telling her parents first and stuff…”

James glares deadpan over a sheet of newspaper he’s about to wrap around a beer glass he stole out their local pub when he was 20.  
“What, and it was okay to tell me and for me to tell Lily, but you don’t think that extends to your other best mate, Sirius?”

If nothing else, Remus is grateful James didn’t add in the always implied ‘crush’ before Sirius’s name. It’s the bane of his existence that he has never been able to really get over Sirius, and that his feelings only seem to intensify over time. He bites his lip.

“Well - I told you because I was panicking, and Lily would have found out through you anyway because you’ve a big mouth, so I just gave you the go ahead,” he defends, somewhat weakly. James rolls his eyes.  
“The longer you leave it, if he knows I knew before him, the more offended he’ll be.”

There’s a thump as Remus drops a heavy ring binder onto the floor and all the plastic pockets inside break off from the metal rings, spilling their guts onto the chipped wood floor streaked with dust. Groaning, he starts to gather them up- at least it gives him something to focus on while he tries to find a good way to reply to James and his regrettably sound wisdom.

“I just… Look, it feels a bit weird, okay? Given my, um, the fact that I…”

And now it’s Remus nearly bringing up the word crush, or love interest, or anything about his feelings for Sirius in general. Seems he can’t even let himself catch a break. James eyes him knowingly to the backdrop of crinkling sports news as he stuffs the edges into the glass and picks up the tape.

“Are you committing to Tonks?” James asks, pointed, and it’s such a loaded question Remus wonders if Lily put James up to it. Blanching, Remus stuffs the broken pockets of files into a shoebox full of documents and stands up, brushing off the dirtied knees of his jeans.  
“I- of course,” he huffs, fidgeting at the book case, pulling off some books and examining their spines. “I kind of have to.”

Sighing, James lays a hand on his shoulder, making Remus jump - when had he gotten up? He can see so much pity in James’s eyes, whether he means to express it or not, and it makes Remus feel he’ll shrivel up in shame.  
“That’s a problem, you know. If you only stay because you reckon you should.”

Remus grimaces, wants to say something rash and unkind because the room, previously freezing, suddenly feels stifling hot and makes the back of his neck feel slick with sweat. He wants to let the heat out of his body with some scathing comment but he can’t harness the energy, and soon the boil simmers and then chills to defeat. He knows when he’s beaten, but he won’t willingly raise the white flag. He resumes picking up books, piling them on the floor, systematically emptying shelf after shelf.

“It’s not like I don’t care for her though. Like I’m not only staying because I should, there are, y’know, feelings involved.”

James shrugs, returns to his cardboard box, now full, and parcel tapes it shut.

“Feelings like the ones you have for Sirius?”

There it is. Usually James refrains from bringing it up quite as boldly, but it was obviously on the tip of his tongue. Remus furrows his brow, turning to James feeling that he’s been accused of something, which he supposes he has been, accidentally knocking over a stack of computer manuals and coding textbooks and a never used yet rite of passage dictionary gifted by the eloquent Euphemia.

It feels like James knows the intensity of Remus’s fuck-up, that when he had been hunched over Tonks, hands clamping down just above her hip bones, grunting out something animalistic as he came, he had been imagining a broader, bird-boned back, longer hair, paler skin, narrower hips - Sirius. Hadn’t meant to think it, had tried to keep his head clear because if he didn’t those thoughts always made their way in, but one second he had felt his whole body stuttering on a breath and a thrust and the next he had thought of Sirius, Sirius, Sirius.

As usual.

But there’s no way for James to know that. And it doesn’t seem fair to question Rem’s integrity. He glowers a little, tosses his curls from his forehead carelessly even though they fall straight back over his eyes, prepares to spit venom -

“I got - I got my GIRLFRIEND pregnant, and you’re asking me about-“

“Tonks is pregnant?”

Peter stands in the doorway, sleep groggy, surprised as much as a James and Remus are that he walked in on this conversation. James gulps, turns to look at Rem, who stares at Peter, who looks awkwardly between the two of them before shuffling into the conjoined kitchen, preparing to make coffee.

“I wasn’t supposed to hear that, was I?” Peter laments, clearly embarrassed because he seems to find everything embarrassing. Remus clears his throat as James slowly pushes the cardboard box in front of him to the side of the room, adding the scuffing noise of it to the burbling of the kettle.  
“S’fine. And yeah, she is.”

Peter shakes his head a little as if to free it from grogginess, gesturing to the kettle for James and Remus. Remus nods, James shakes his head.

“Shit. I mean, not like it’s shit, but… wow. Fuck.”

Peter’s eloquent summary of Remus’s emotional and mental state can’t help but make Remus laugh. Peter looks startled at first at the sound, before awkwardly joining in. James comes to stand against the counter, pushing his glasses up his nose a bit, smiling tight lipped.

“Rem hasn’t told Sirius yet, so keep it quiet, yeah?” James advises, and Peter nods solemnly, stirring sugar into Remus’s coffee.

“Secret’s safe with me.”

-

The cafe is busy enough that their conversation could hardly be listened to successfully. Not that James, Lily or Remus thought it was likely that anyone would try. But Tonks had insisted, and they had entered two cafes before settling on this one - the Starbucks by Brixton tube station.

For Remus it was beyond too busy. He felt like his whole body was on high alert, though he didn’t know why. What they were here to discuss could be the cause. It made him feel sick. He was so far from ready for this… And yet he had to be. He had to try.

“Rem?” Dora asks, poking her head into his line of vision. Her eyebrows are slanted down and she looks irritable, but she has been struggling to sleep recently. She doesn’t even realise one hand is resting over her stomach right now. Remus glances at it uncomfortably then looks away.

He had discussed it with her. He said he would keep it if it were his choice. And she had agreed, but she wanted more information. So now…

“Aaand café latte for Remoose, triple espresso shot, extra caramel syrup,” James grins, plopping down opposite them in the final vacant armchair at their little table at the back. Lily and Remus sit opposite one another on the small, slightly uncomfortable ottomans, while Dora sits in the twin armchair to James’s. He nods to her kindly, picking up his black americano while Lily stirs sugar into her tea.

“So Tonks,” Lily starts, voice light, friendly, sort of professional. She’s a med student, will complete her final year next year, and at least knows more about pregnancy and what that entails than anyone else Tonks is willing to talk to yet. “You wanted to talk about the different options around abortion and also about what happens when you’re pregnant. Right?”

Dora glances around them as if to check if anyone heard, before looking back at Lily with a red face and nodding. Lily smiles, kind, sweet. James nudges Rem’s knee under the table and flashes him a reassuring grin.

“Well, how many weeks are you?” Lily starts, flipping through a notebook she had used in a class, presumably. She checks something, shuts it again, waits patiently for Tonks to reply.  
“6. I mean, I used a Clear Blue test, and it said 3, when I found out, uh,” she stutters, “3 weeks, I mean.”

“So, um… Clear Blue would be 3 weeks since conception, not in terms of the start of your last period like it would be with the NHS or anything.”  
“How d’you know that?” James asks, tilting his head.  
“I looked it up before coming here. I’m not going in without doing my research,” Lily grumbles, and Remus and James pull a face that says something along the lines of ‘fair enough’.  
“She called me to ask what kind of test I used before we met up,” Dora shrugs.

“So 3 weeks since conception when you took the test, and that was presumably 3 weeks ago now. So in terms of the NHS, who measure from the start of your last period, which was…?”  
“8 weeks ago… Ish,” Dora blinks, looking more startled and scared by the minute.  
“So the NHS would call that 8 weeks pregnant. That’s the week you’d want to look at if you were looking up week by week guides, etcetera…” Lily trails off, noticing how terrified Tonks looks, and reaches over to take her hand. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s a difference of two weeks, it isn’t a lot. Some people only find out they’re pregnant several months in, y’know?”

“I just thought that the test would… Would go with the same system as the doctors... “ Tonks mumbles, and James smiles as encouragingly as he can.  
“For sure. It’s kind of weird that they don’t. But it’s alright, Tonks. Just take it slow, think about the options.”  
“Mhm. Abortions can be practiced up to 24 weeks, so you’re well within that. Try not to stress yourself too much about the exact week or anything. It’s going to be fine.”

Tonks looks at Remus, the only one who hasn’t said anything yet. When he snaps back to reality, he blinks and forces a smile. She’s further along than he thought, than she thought. It feels a bit like bad news, even if he’s working on being… Strong. Optimistic, maybe? It’s hard to say.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Let’s just… Find out what we can, so you can make a decision you’re happy with.”

His clap on her shoulder is a little too buddy-buddy, not exactly the reassuring partner but instead the encouraging good friend. She smiles weakly back, as if she knows his heart isn’t in it.

Lily senses some tension and jumps in. Once again her ability to sense the mood fishes Remus out of trouble. She flips open the top of her satchel, reaches in for something, withdraws a red ring binder with a sticky note on the front - ‘Notes for Dora’. Remus can’t help but smile at the thoughtfulness of it, and watches Lily open the binder to stacks of polypockets.

“Okay so, shall we start with the information on abortions, or about the process of pregnancy itself?”

Lily morphs into a vision of her in high school, when Remus would get frustrated at something in physics or chemistry, two subjects he wasn’t particularly good at, and she would sit across from him in the library with her flashcards and notes. She would quiz him for the whole of lunch break, and again after school at home in her room. He’s struck with how she’s barely changed, years later.

“Let’s get abortion info over and done with,” Tonks sighs, pressing her face into her cupped hands, shoving her hair back. She’s been getting more and more frustrated with her hair recently, threatening to chop it every other day, to which Remus can do nothing but shrug and tell her to do what she wants.

He can sense her resistance to the idea of aborting it, while still stressing over the idea of keeping it either. ‘It’. She’s been calling it ‘it’ this whole time, and Remus follows suit because it seems purposeful. He’s terrified of making her feel she’s forced to do this, to hurt her sense of agency over her body. He remembers his dad shouting at his mum, when they disagreed over what to do with what would be… Would have been… His little sister. Making eye contact with James, he gulps. James senses his tension and nods towards the door.

“Dora, do you mind if I take Remus away for a couple minutes? Maybe it’ll help you think about, y’know, what you want, and not what he might want… And you can ask any questions you might be too embarrassed to talk about in front of me,” James winks, and it’s the first time that Tonks actually smiles with some warmth.  
“Sure. I’ll save the questions that’ll embarrass you guys until you get back,” she promises, and Remus snorts as he grabs his coat, knowing that she means it.

Once the boys are gone, Lily sighs and runs a hand over the top of the sheet protector. She barely knows Tonks on a personal level, has only spoken to her as Remus’s girlfriend, someone who only shows up by Rem’s side, but never alone. She supposes it must be the same vice versa. She largely only goes to Rem’s with James, not so much time to go alone as well now. She needs to try and make Tonks comfortable with her, so they can discuss it, and so they can be… Friends. After all, if Remus and Tonks are serious, then…

“So, before abortion there’s a bunch of things you have to go through first… Have you already made an antenatal appointment?”  
“Uh… No?”  
“Oh. Well, this is around the right time to do it. It’s usually as soon as you find out you’re pregnant. But um, at 8 weeks abortion can be medical, so with pills that will stop pregnancy hormones. It’ll cause some bleeding but it won’t hurt. There’s also, um, suction method…”

And so it goes on. Tonks nods, asks what feels like a million questions, frowning and biting her nails. She enters some shorthand notes onto a sticky note - to make an appointment with the doctor, schedule scans… Remus comes back in as she’s discussing the size of her baby - her baby! - at 8 weeks.

It feels real. It doesn’t feel quite so much an ‘it’. Lily showed her a photo of an 8 week old fetus, and she had been surprised. A tail? Apparently 8 week fetuses have tails? When she tells Remus this, he laughs, and she laughs a little as well until it makes her stomach roll too much and she places a hand over her mouth, waiting until the wave passes.

“You okay?” Remus asks, looking worried, and she gulps then nods. He rubs her back, and she grumbles and hunches, trying to stretch her spine a little. It’s been sore so much, and so have her tits, and she keeps feeling sick. She gulps the dregs of her green tea and James goes to get another without being asked.

“Rem, it’s the size of a bean just now, y’know?”  
“What kind of bean?” he asks, and Lily snorts.  
“Kidney bean, kinda,” she shrugs, and Remus hums in interest.

When they’re packing up to go, Lily pushes the binder into Tonks’s hands and insists she keep it.  
“I have a back-up on my laptop, so don’t worry about it. Just take it, and follow up the websites I suggested. Make sure to call the doctor!”

Remus wants to say she sounds like her mother, but knows telling Lily that will get him scolded, so he just shares a knowing look with James over their girlfriends’ heads and heads off down the street with Tonks looking something up on her phone. She’s oddly energised, and he’s glad about it, but curious of what that means for her decision. She doesn’t seem inclined to tell him yet, either.

-

When Remus had left the cafe with James, it had felt like exiting through some kind of forcefield of anxiety. Sometimes Rem’s inability to know his own emotions and deal with them is a complete curse. His friends, and the fact they know him better than he knows himself, have saved him countless times. And now here’s James, saving him again right after Lily had to fish him out of deep waters. He can’t help but feel bad about it. He feels like a shoddy excuse for an adult.

“Alright?” James asks, a hand on Rem’s bicep. Rem sighs and shrugs.  
“I don’t even know. Do you just want to wander for a bit?” he suggests, and James nods, pushes his glasses up his nose and sets off in a random direction.  
“Were you thinking about your dad?”

His comment is so on the nose that Rem balks a bit. Then, gnawing on his lip, he nods.  
“Yeah. I’m really scared of making her feel she has to do anything, you know? She’s always been super independent and… I don’t want it to feel smothering. But I should be more involved, and yet… Well, she’s been pushing me away, kind of, and still looking for support at the same time. I don’t know how to balance it.”

All the worries he’s had weighing on him come spilling out just like that, and James listens, absorbs it patiently. They take a right, then a left.

“From experience, s’probably better to actually talk to her about it,” James shrugs. “Seems obvious but… You’re never going to know what she needs better than if she tells you herself. Might take some time to get to that point, if you need to sort of ease her into it, but yeah.”  
Remus grumbles softly, but knows James is right. He just doesn’t even know how to approach that kind of conversation when Tonks has been so stand-offish. He knows it happens, with pregnancy hormones and all, and yet… Well.

“Do you think Sirius is going to be mad at me?” Remus finally asks, voice small. James blinks, seems surprised by the twist of the conversation’s path. They’re a fair while from the café now, have wound their way into Brixton proper, away from the tube station and past a primary school. The houses are a little shabby and mostly carbon copies of each other, some with laundry hanging from the miniscule balconies, others with the low glow of lamps already because the light doesn’t reach their windows.There’s a towering block of flats up ahead.

“What, for getting his cousin pregnant?” James laughs, and Remus scowls and budges James with his shoulder.  
“No! For telling you first, and even Peter knows, and Lily. You know he gets precious about Lily knowing before him, because he was ‘first’,” Rem snorts, and James rolls his eyes.  
“Yeah, yeah. He’s slowly growing out of that, thank god. But honestly, I dunno. His moods are hard to guess, because of that fucking bastard he’s with.”

Between them, with no one else here, the venom they share for Rudolphus can run free, and it does so. The cusses, ill wishes, disgruntlement and confusion. The ‘I want to punch is teeth in’ to the ‘I want to shake Sirius and make him see,’ all of it. It’s infuriating, it’s heartbreaking. How can you help someone that refuses your help?

It’s cathartic, kind of, to let it out. And James gives Remus a pitying look towards the end, stops next to him and puts his hand on his arm again.  
“I know you feel guilty, Rem. Because of your feelings, and you feel like you’re hurting Tonks and Sirius both. But… Not to sound cheesy, but I believe in you, mate.”

Glancing up then, James abruptly changes the subject - he’s still not great at doing this sort of heartfelt stuff, most of the time. “Look, there’s flats going up here. Since you and Tonks wanted to look for something… Y’should get the number from the sign.”

Once they’re back to the café, Remus does feel better. And seeing that Tonks is in better spirits helps, too. But the idea of a tiny fetus, with a tail of all things, the size of a kidney bean, growing inside Tonks and knowing that in time he’ll be… the father of that. It’s unnerving. How can he possibly be ready for that responsibility?

-

Marlene looks out over the Thames from the chief editor’s office. She’s been called in here to receive information on the newest article she’s being sent to write. This time she’ll be travelling to Jordan, to write a few articles on the ancient artefacts there. She loves travelling, but she feels a little bad about going this time. She knows Lily and James are busy as all hell with moving, and this trip coincides with the moving day, so she won’t be able to help.

Oh well. There’s nothing she can really do about that. As she packs up the things scattered over her desk - research, her notebook, her laptop, so on so forth - she wonders if Lily will have time for a bottle of wine and a chat tonight. Marlene is booked for the red-eye from Gatwick, so she isn’t likely to get much sleep at all anyway.

It does feel selfish, though, coveting Lily’s free time like this. Maybe she should offer to go ‘round to Lily’s and pack up some things. Bring a bottle of wine and her bags for the airport with her, and just leave from there. She decides to call on her way home, booking an Uber to get her from the front of the office.

The reason Marlene feels guilty as she checks her hair and makeup before going to Lily’s is simple. It’s because she knows she’s different from Lily and James. She’s always had this ability, the ability to see her own love as an infinite resource. She frequently harboured crushes on more than one person at once. She always liked girls and boys. Her brother had called her greedy for it, wanting the best of both worlds, wanting to love more than one person and be loved back by more than one too. It is what it is.

Polyamory certainly doesn’t do any favours if you fall for two of your closest friends, though. Two friends who happen to be engaged, at that. Marlene colours in shame. She has never been the type to keep secrets, but this one is sealed tight behind closed lips. She can’t tell Lily or James. She just can’t.

Of course, the shame, guilt, nerves are gone when she turns up outside Lily’s door, hidden under her nice makeup and perfectly styled hair, behind the flourish of her arms with one hand on her suitcase and the other holding a bottle of nice wine, Lily’s favourite. She keeps it quiet when they hug and she sees James over Lily’s shoulder, smiling at her from the couch. She doesn’t want them to worry about her. She doesn’t want them to know. She wants them to be happy.

-

Rudolphus has been out a lot recently. Like, a LOT. Sirius isn’t sure what to think of it. On one hand he’s pretty chuffed - he gets to do what he wants as long as the flat is clean and there’s food ready when Rudy gets home. He’s still chagrined at feeling like Cinderella but hey ho. On the other hand, he’s nervous. What is Rudy out doing exactly? Is something happening that he should know about? Has he done something wrong and is just waiting for Sirius to beg for forgiveness?

It feels like so much hard work to be trying to second guess someone’s intentions every minute spent with them. But Rudolphus had threatened to invite Bellatrix over while Sirius was there, and make him watch Rudy fuck her, last time Sirius had complained about it. That or just expose Sirius’s whereabouts to Bellatrix and watch things get ugly. He grumbles under his breath. The idea of seeing his cousin in a compromising position makes his stomach roll.

May as well head out and see Alice and Frank. He grabs the cigarettes he tossed to the bottom of the laundry basket under a heap of slightly damp towels and checks they’re in smokable condition. Pleased to say they are, if not smelling a bit dewy, he throws the towels into the washing machine and gets ready to head out.

Every time he locks the front door and sets off down the stairs, he has to take the stairs two at a time. It feels like he’s finally able to stretch his ribs to full capacity, feel the cool air rushing in. He feels bigger, capable of taking up more room. He doesn’t feel like he’s hiding under everyone’s stares. It isn’t resonant with how things used to be in Grimmauld Place. It’s like he could be free.

Of course he knows he’s kind of like a bird with a chain connecting one ankle to its cage. He can go a distance, but eventually the chain will pull tight and he’ll have no choice but to return ‘home’. He tries not to grudge it. Rudy says he’s too proud, too self absorbed, too self righteous to be choosy.

Part way to Alice and Frank’s cafe, he glances over the street and spots a familiar car. He instinctively ducks behind a telephone box, nearly wastes half a cigarette by tossing it on the ground and crushing it, thinks of patting down his pockets until he finds his deodorant, cologne and breath spray. But the car keeps moving, slightly slowed by the traffic, and Sirius realises he’s probably safe. He doesn’t exit from his shelter, but moves just enough to get a better look, paying no heed to the confused stares sent his way.

It’s definitely Rudy’s car. Rudy is obstructed by someone in the passenger seat, and Sirius squints to try and make out who it is. He’s not generally able to ask many questions about what Rudy does when he’s not home before he’s met with snappish remarks about being nosy. This is an opportunity to gain a bit of insight.

But his eyes must be tricking him. He rubs them briskly, leans forward a bit. Is that…? 

Taking out his phone, he dials and holds it to his ear, waiting. He sees the person in the car looking down at his lap, and then picking up the phone, and sure enough the line connects.

“Hey Sirius, what’s up?”

Strained voice. He can see him glancing out of the window.  
“Hi Peter. I was just wondering if you’re busy, maybe wanna get a coffee at Alice and Frank’s place?”

Sirius keeps his tone bright, normal. One hand stuffed in his pocket, the other on his phone, standing out from hiding to watch Peter looking out the window again. The car’s just passing the cafe in question now.

“Oh, uh, I’m actually caught up with some stuff just now and then I’ll be going to work…” Peter stutters, clearly flustered, worried of being caught. If it isn’t enough that he’s even with Rudolphus, that he doesn’t want Sirius to know about it means it’s probably nothing Sirius would be best pleased about.  
“Aww, but you never hang out properly anymoreeee,” he whines, enjoying this minor game of cat and mouse, even if Peter doesn’t know he’s playing. “I’m outside the cafe right now. Sure you can’t come in?”

The last words are steel, cold and shining. He watches the car just across the right lane pulling up to the traffic lights, walking up to the cafe front as he speaks. He knows Peter can see him now, but he hasn’t realised Sirius can see him too. Peter is just about to start making excuses, and he can see him waving at Rudy, urging him to run the red light. Wow, that eager to get away?

Just before the light changes, Peter looks back over towards the cafe, only to see Sirius smiling right back at him, knowing. The pallor that falls over Pete’s face is just the icing on the cake.

-

A campus isn’t the least conspicuous for Bellatrix in her normal wear, as a 36 year old woman. She decided before coming here that she’ll dress business casual, play the part of a professor if she must. Applying deep red lipstick and slicking her hair back from her face, straightened and tamed for once, she exits her Mercedes and locks it behind her.

Walking slowly over the campus cobbles, she buttons her large overcoat and smooths her pencil skirt, looking around her with a lazy tilt of her head. She can see a clutch of students sitting on one of the stone benches out front of the main building, watching her ravenously, and she smirks to herself. Checking her bag for her phone, she slips it from the neat satchel and unlocks it, checking her emails before heading to the building that her research has led her to.

A small, thin boy with high cheekbones and tousled black hair exits the business building alone, rearranging the position of his bag strap. Despite the disguise of the oversized hoodie and tastefully ripped skinny jeans, unlike anything he may have worn before, Bellatrix identifies him as Regulus - or as she refers to him, Cassiopeia.

Smirking, Bellatrix holds back for a moment, allowing Regulus to walk ahead some, before she follows her cousin. She had come here in her own time, disregarding her father’s wishes to forget about Cassie. Bellatrix has a hunch, though, an idea that now that sweet little Cassiopeia has detached herself from the family after removing a sizable sum from her trust fund, she may have gotten into contact with Sirius again. And that certainly is within her remit.

Bellatrix would have informed Rudolphus of this hunch, but her fiancé-to-be has been concerningly reticent over the task of finding Sirius. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want her to find her cousin, which piques her interest. Why wouldn’t he want to follow her father’s orders? Cygnus has done a great deal for building Rudy’s name up in the finance world, and at least Rabastan has the decency to be grateful when presented with the opportunity to climb the ladder. Rudolphus had been grateful, but now he’s rearing against the idea of completing her uncle and father’s wishes. Well, since she’s not allowed to personally get her hands on that greasy git Peter, she has to resort to other means.

Regulus is walking over the campus briskly, checking his phone, head down. Bellatrix looks about her at the expansive campus quadrangle, remembering her own days attending classes in Oxford for her finance masters degree. She had received similarly hungry looks from students then as a nicely muscled, strong jawed teen and young adult, sauntering around the esteemed university with icy eyes and wilder hair. She had been untouchable then and is still untouchable now.

In those days Cassiopeia had been a pliant child desperate for approval. The trend continued into high school, too. And now… well, her father calls this whole faux pas a damn shame, a waste of a good heir. He had said similar things when little Sirius went running off at 16, too.

Regulus suddenly stops in his tracks and looks behind him, the picture of a startled rabbit. Bellatrix similarly halts and looks down at her phone, which she had just opened the camera on. No amount of pretending to be busy could truly disguise her from her cousin, though.

Regulus doesn’t approach, though. Bellatrix had thought as much - Cassie had never been confrontational. Instead, he turns tail and walks much faster, and Bella keeps pace. She doesn’t have to talk to Regulus today. It isn’t even really a hitch in her plan for her cousin to know he is being followed. The looming sense of dread will weaken Regulus’s resolve, priming him for an easy attack when Bella is ready to stop playing with her food.

Watching Regulus enter the next building, Bellatrix lags behind a second and watches him enter one of the ground floor rooms with large floor to ceiling windows. He moves stiffly, mechanic, as he approaches a girl with bright red hair who was bent over a huge textbook in her lap. He seems scared as he speaks to her, expression betraying his panic, and Bella smiles. She enters the building, leisurely, and examines the posters outside the room Regulus is now inside. The likely candidate is the rainbow clad paper stuck to the door with sellotape, an advertisement for the university’s all inclusive LGBT society’s weekly meetings.

Taking a photo of the poster, Bellatrix smirks like the cat that got the cream. She’s done enough for today. It’s time to go.

-

Heading west on the Bakerloo line has never particularly felt like a good idea to Peter, who knows as well as any Londoner that once out of zone 2 on the Bakerloo the stations tend to look shit and have various other repellants. Harlesden especially isn’t where he wants to be, given the crime levels that are not exactly atypical, but a little unexpected outside of the tourist hotspots. He looks like the sort of person who is easy to pick on, and he knows it. Peter is sweating badly once he walks up all the stairs, and he feels like there’s some sign singling him out as he heads through the ticket gates and outside. Afterall, he’s not here for anything he’d want his friends or family to know about.

Knowing that Sirius knows that Peter has been around Rudolphus has been, in short, giving him some nasty indigestion. It’s like realising a nightmare and not being able to wake up from it. What is Sirius going to do with this information? It’s not like he’s hanging around Rudolphus because he wants to, he just got cornered and now he’s doing as he’s told. If he doesn’t, he isn’t sure what will happen, but he’d prefer not to find out.

At least he doubts Sirius would be out here in Harlesden, because it’s nowhere that Sirius, James or Remus have been known to frequent. It’s also a shite area and one of the worst tube stations Peter could think to commute through, overcrowding in zone 1 stations notwithstanding. But he does what he’s told, and that’s that.

Looking around him, his palms feel itchy and he rubs them on the thighs of his jeans. He’s waiting for someone called Avery, someone involved with the guy Rudolphus directed him to. It’s all very smoke and mirrors, and Peter doesn’t really care for it. He has university assignments to tend to, and work tonight, but apparently that’s no concern for the Black family and those affiliated with them. He’s left standing on the street feeling shady for a good ten minutes past the arranged meeting time, and is starting to wonder if he should call up and check that things are on track, wondering also if he can maybe worm his way out of this and leave now, just make a run for it or go back into the tube station and catch the next train. Would they know what he looks like? Probably… They’ve got his full name, they could look him up - after all, he’s got an uncommon surname so his Facebook profile pops up pretty easily.

Just before he can try and flake out, Peter hears approaching footsteps tapping a quick beat on the pavement, and a man in a suit that looks straight out of the tailors stops in front of him with a face so blank it could be a mask.  
“Looking for Avery?” the man asks, and Peter nods. He wishes he said no and waited for the guy to leave, so he wouldn’t have to do this. Why had he agreed to this? It would have been easier to just give over information on Sirius to Cygnus. He shouldn’t have let Rudolphus talk him out of it. What does he care about what happens to Rudolphus, anyway?

And yet, here he is.

“Come with me.”

-

Around a week after the meet up with James and Lily, Remus is standing in Tesoro cafe, a small, relatively new establishment run by his high school friends Alice and Frank. He had some worries about coming here, since Sirius frequents it whenever he’s got the chance to go out and no plans with the other Marauders to attend to. But Tesoro is blessedly Sirius-free and he sighs, looking around the place.

It’s nice. Like, really nice. He likes the calm here, the soft guitar arrangements playing on overhead speakers connected to the phone in the dock by the singular till. Alice comes through from the back wiping her hands on a checked tea towel and smiles sweetly at him.

“Remus, you came! It’s been ages.” That she seems to have missed him is touching. Remus isn’t used to being missed, really. He smiles back, leans up on the counter and squeaks the toe of his high tops on the wood flooring.  
“Yeah, sorry about that. Life keeps getting in the way. How are you?”

Alice and Frank had been a year above Remus in high school and their slow burn love had been the cutest thing he could imagine, even as a grouchy, energy juice fuelled teen. It’s rare that the term ‘meant for each other’ will roll off the tip of his tongue so easily but with them it’s truly the case.

It’s sickening, really.

Rem can hear Frank humming to himself in the back room along with the song playing now, and he smiles. He had always hummed wherever he went, and it seems the habit remains.

“Well, we’re good. The cafe is successful enough, you know, to pay rent and whatnot. We’re actually aiming to take out a mortgage soon but… well, when the tables fill out as fast as ours do in high traffic times, it’s hard to take in every prospective customer…”

She rambles on as she wipes smears from the touch screen register and Remus tilts his head. He isn’t good with business stuff, really - or at all. In fact numbers themselves were a bit of a weak point for him. Keeping the books for a place like this would be his nightmare. It was Sirius who had always been pretty savvy with this stuff.

“Right. And is it still just you two?” he asks with a frown, looking around him for someone in the cute coffeehouse uniform. He sees none and to confirm it, Alice nods as he turns back to her.  
“Yes, and the occasional help from Benjy and Caradoc but they’re busy enough without taking on more here. The two of them are actually intending to move out of the city. I’ll miss them so much, aah…”

She trails off wistful, not realising she went on another of her tangents. Remus smirks at her until she flushes and stutters, shaking out of her reverie. She’s always doting on Caradoc and Benjy, since she was their chief matchmaker, as she calls it. She doesn’t usually point out that Caradoc was her and Frank’s chief matchmaker in turn, though.

“Anyway, we thought of putting out a hiring ad but… well, Frank is still quite shy with people so that's why he tends to take care of the work in the back. And well, I don’t want just anyone, you know?” Then she gets a look in her eye before rounding the counter to stand before Remus, sizing him up. “Maybe you’d want a part time gig to top you up? Never know what’s going to happen! It’s good to have a contingency fund.”

She has no idea how right she is about never knowing, but Rem only laughs softly and shakes his head.  
“I think I’d be a disaster behind a coffee machine. I’d suggest Sirius because he’s a coffee snob but… well, you know.”

Alice sighs, looks at her feet and nods. Of course she knows, even if she was never officially told. She can see the bruises Sirius turns up with when he visits, and it makes her fiercely angry. Frank often has to calm her down before she starts seething and Facebook stalking and leaving aggressive messages here there and everywhere. She’s generally very peaceful but she’s also incredibly protective.

“Anyway, I’m sure you’ll find someone. Ask around - maybe Dorcas or Marl will know someone. Oh, or Lily if she’s ever in. She’s surprisingly well connected,” he chuckles, and Alice perks up.  
“I think I’ll tell Sirius that if he ever wants a job, y’know.. needs it as a way of getting out, he’s welcome, no questions asked. I’ll pay him double if he wants, god knows, and if he needs to be secretive I’ll… do what I can to help.”

It’s so thoughtful and lovely that Remus wants to cry. He wishes he had that kind of opportunity to present to Sirius, other than just his protection, his love. He can offer space in his room, a little money but… that’s it. No jobs, unless he could put in a really good word at the library to the management he basically never sees because he works night shift. And anyway, Sirius would probably call working in a library a nightmare. He’d be about right - he’s too much of a loudmouth for it.

After a coffee and finally getting to chat with Frank as well when the bread’s in the oven, Remus pulls his coat on and checks his phone. Alice hugs him so tight that his back cracks and he laughs, a bit breathless at being yanked to her 4’11” level. Frank ruffles his hair and hugs him too, still treating him like a kid because Frank is just everyone’s older brother, really. He feels a little melancholy as he heads back to his flat, feeling more acutely the web that has woven around him.

-

Sirius doubts it’s a good idea to question it. Bellatrix left an hour ago, arriving unannounced so that he had to hide in the little closet, perched on top of the washing machine surrounded by folded towels and bedsheets. By the time he’s out, his back is stiff and the air is foul with tension throughout the flat. He quietly sets about making coffee, careful even to set the teaspoon down silently. Rudolphus is in their room, pacing by the sounds of his footsteps. Sirius looks out the window at the rain and debates pushing down his curiosity.

But curiosity wins out. First the other day with Peter in Rudy’s car, and now Bellatrix arriving like that sounding jubilant. He wants, no, needs to know. More and more the things behind the curtains seem to be involving him and parts of his personal life - parts he tried to leave behind and parts he tried to remove from Rudolphus’ orbit entirely.

“Hey, babe?” he murmurs, padding into the bedroom with two cups of coffee, setting one down for Rudy in top of the dresser. Rudolphus looks at him, seeming agitated and tired. Sirius manages a wan smile. “I made coffee. Thought you might need it.”

Rudolphus clenches his fist and tenses his jaw, shaking his head as he crosses the room to take his coffee cup. Sirius reflexively steps back a few inches at the lessening distance. Rudolphus thankfully doesn’t seem to notice.  
“Your fucking cousin… She’s always meddling in shit she shouldn’t and acting like a spoiled brat wanting praise. As if I’m going to be glad…”

The thing is, Sirius has no idea his family are looking for him. This is a fact Rudolphus has tread around lightly. He doesn’t want Sirius to get all dramatic or get ideas of disappearing in the night just because his dad is sending scouts out for information and making his friends turncoat. Sirius is blissfully ignorant, as far as Rudolphus knows, and he intends to keep it that way.

Sirius gulps quietly and looks around the room. Rudy has been going through things, looking for something. He doesn’t want to know what.

“Has Cygnus been saying much about you and her?” he asks, trying to put it lightly, nonchalant. Rudy eyes him coolly.  
“Obviously. Pushing the proposal so a ring may as well be under my nose. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Getting shot of me because I’ve got to marry her.”

It’s so bitter that Sirius flinches, wishing he hadn’t asked. He has to wonder where his bravery goes when he’s with Rudolphus, where the unflappable cockiness he always exuded ran off to. Is he so broken by his situation that he isn’t even the same person he used to be?

“I didn’t say that,” he protests, keeping his voice mild. He doesn’t want to argue. He can never get the upper hand when they do. “I was just wondering.”

There’s a lapse in conversation as Rudy sinks to the side of the bed and sips his coffee, staring into the tar black liquid as if it may be prophetic. Sirius can’t help but feel sorry for him. No matter how angry he gets at his boyfriend, no matter how much he hates him sometimes, he knows this isn’t an ideal situation and… well, they’ve lived together for some time now, and with that kind of extended proximity it’s no wonder he cares.

“I thought I saw you the other day,” he chances, feeling he’s treading on thin ice. Rudolphus looks up at him, narrowing his eyes. “In Marylebone, I thought I saw your car. But there was someone with you so I didn’t flag you down.”

Regardless of whether Sirius knows his family are looking for him or not, he isn’t about to go mixing with his boyfriend’s crowd. They may well be connected to his estranged family, after all, even if the connection is loose. He’s no more interested in having his family know he’s involved with Rudy than Rudy is. After all, it would get Rudolphus in unimaginable shit to say the least - being with the shamed and disowned son of his employer’s family. At least this helps Sirius not have to explain why he didn’t want to see Rudolphus then - he doesn’t have to outright imply it was someone he knows, someone Rudy has no business in seeing.

“Is that so?”

But Rudolphus seems to have picked up on it, on the fact that Sirius isn’t just making small talk. He looks guarded, cold, intimidating as he stands up and stalks to the window.  
“Who was it?” he asks, and Sirius swallows audibly.  
“It was weird because it looked like one of my friends, but I was probably imagining it…” he placates hurriedly, finishing his coffee and picking up Rudy’s empty cup as well.  
“Probably. But either way, it’s none of your fucking business.”

Before he knows it, Rudy has his hand coiled in Sirius’s hair, grip tight so he tugs on the roots painfully. Sirius flinches but makes no noise, forcing himself to stand as still as possible. Trying to get away, crying out, any of that, it’ll only make this worse. Rudolphus sneers down at him.  
“You think you’re so smart, trying to meddle in my business, huh? Think you can play detective and keep tabs on me? You self-interested prick. Maybe if you thought about what I’m having to deal with, you’d have some decency,” he snarls, and Sirius forces down a shudder and a snarky remark. He can’t get himself in more hot water than he’s already been in this week, James looked like he was going to burst a vein cleaning the cuts the other day. “You have no idea how lucky you are, having all the money you could want brought to you, having as much freedom as I give you when all you do is run your mouth and ask too many questions. I’m having to negotiate a marriage with your cousin, and you’re wondering who I’m driving around with? What, worried I’m cheating, Sirius? Ha. No, you’ve already caused me a world of trouble, so keep your nose out my work before I have to get really angry.”

He lets go of Sirius’s hair so suddenly that Sirius feels a little dizzy, having to focus on staying in place. If he leaves now of his own accord and Rudy isn’t done, then hell will break loose.

“Go and do the dishes. And sort your hair out, it smells like laundry powder.”

Rudolphus stalks past him and straight out the front door, and Sirius is left standing with the empty coffee cups, shaking, with bile rising up his throat. The noxious atmosphere of the flat lingers, and it feels like it’s been shipped straight from Grimmauld.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, guys. Should be back to regular posting now!


	4. Chapter 4: Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> Vomit mentions  
> Controlling/abusive family member, running away mention  
> Talk about porn, talk about coming out  
> Mentions about weight (minor)  
> Mention of abusive relationship  
> Drinking, smoking mentioned/described

The last thing Tonks expected in Oxford was a tall blonde woman dressed in incredibly expensive clothes and immaculate makeup. As usual she showed little to no tact upon entering because hell, she used to live here, so she simply burst through the door with a loud ‘hello’ and proceeded to kick her shoes off and chuck her coat on the floor.

Tonks is usually not nervous to come and visit her parents, but the last two times she’s visited she has been. This time it is because she came with a specific purpose - to tell her parents that she’s pregnant. She doesn’t know how her mum and dad are going to react. She’s imagined various sequences of events before deciding to come, and on the way here. She’s barely slept, partly because of the nausea and partly because of the anxiety.

She can imagine her mum paling and frantically asking who the dad is and what she’s going to do now, or she can imagine neutrality, vague congratulations, or she can imagine her mum being overjoyed that she’ll get to be a grandma while she’s still young enough to go running around with her grandkids at the park and soft play. She can imagine her dad yelling at her for her irresponsibility before apologising and telling her he’ll support her no matter what, or she can imagine him being concerned and asking a million questions, or she can imagine him being very pragmatic and asking her if she’s keeping it.

All of these options are daunting. But whichever it will be, she won’t find out until later, because there’s a not-quite-familiar face standing in the kitchen in high heels with pursed lips. Tonks thinks she’s seen this woman, or one very similar, on the front of a magazine once but she’s got a terrible memory so she can’t say for sure.

Andromeda bounces up from the breakfast bar and gestures her daughter into the kitchen, smiling somewhat tightly.

“Cissa, this is my daughter, Nymphadora -”  
“Just Tonks is fine,” Nym interjects somewhat gruffly, and ‘Cissa’ quirks a brow.  
“And Nymphadora, this is my little sister, Narcissa.”

It feels distinctly like an ice bath at that moment. Tonks has never met her mother’s relatives apart from Cygnus and Druella, who she had taken an immediate disliking to. She’s barely heard a thing about her mother’s sisters, though she knows her mother had - or, has, two. And now Narcissa is standing here eyeing her a little warily like she might bite, and Tonks is wondering if Narcissa is causing trouble and if she should call dad.

“Narcissa was just here to… To talk about some things,” Andromeda explains, and Narcissa nods in agreement. “Well… Shall we sit down?”

The tension in her mum’s voice is evident from the way it climbs the octaves at the end of each sentence, and Tonks hates her formality, too. It makes her think of how her mum had barely defended her when Cygnus lay into her on that dreaded ‘reunion’ dinner, and she wonders if Cissa will do something like that today, and if her mother will say anything about it. She supposes a little sister is quite a lot different from standing up to a father figure, though, especially a father as imposing as Cygnus seemed.

“Am I, um, s’posed to call you aunty or somethin’?” Tonks asks without any malice, just uncertainty. Narcissa smiles mildly and shakes her head.  
“No, there’s no need for that. Narcissa is fine.” Andromeda seems relieved that Narcissa and Tonks are managing to be cordial.

“Does my gran’da know you’re here?” Tonks asks immediately after, and sees her mother tense. Narcissa blinks, before sighing and shaking her head.  
“I’m not really supposed to. Your, uh, grandfather, my father, has remained purposefully distant with Andy - ah, your mother - ever since my teens. But of course, I wanted to see her anyway, so…” she gestures vaguely over herself, and Tonks utters a bland ‘voila’.

“You should be careful not to get in trouble over this,” her mum chides, and Narcissa rolls her eyes.  
“Andy, I’m 26. Even if he’d be angry about it, there’s only so much he can do. He can’t ground me, for goodness sake.”  
“I guess you are. Though I’ve barely seen you since, well…”  
“Since I was 7. Yes,” Narcissa sighs, crossing one leg over the other at the knee. Tonks watches her mother twist a ring around her finger again and again, and sees that she feels guilty. Narcissa pays no heed to it.

“I’m not able to invite you to my wedding, Andy, but I thought I should come and see you and… Tell you that I’m engaged.” At this, she holds up her left hand to show a rather expensive and gaudy looking diamond ring. Tonks supposes it’s probably fashionable. Andromeda smiles and leans over to admire the jewellery.  
“Beautiful. And this is to…?”  
“Lucius Malfoy. The one I told you about in a letter a few years ago.”  
“I’m glad that you two are working out well, then. Are you already living with him?”  
“I will be, after the wedding. His parents left him a manor, so we’ll be living there in the countryside. It’s a hassle for getting to shoots, but it’s convenient. You know, once we move there, it may be possible for you and Ted to come and visit.”  
“You don’t have to do that. It’s alright,” Andromeda dismisses, and Narcissa sighs.  
“It’s an offer, not a death sentence. Obviously we haven’t been close or in a typical sibling relationship since we were children, but I happen to care about you, Andromeda, and I suspect you care about me as well. If we have the opportunity, it isn’t such a bad thing to be able to… Well, act like things are normal.”

“Wait, wait, so you are a model?” Tonks butts in, mind catching up at last from the influx of information, snagging on the word ‘shoot’. “I thought I recognised you!”

Narcissa smiles charmingly and nods.  
“Yes, I am. I model for a couple of designers here and there.”

After that, the conversation has its twists and turns. Narcissa is dripping with her obvious decadence and privilege but still manages to be mostly likable, though Tonks finds her posh accent to be grating after a while. While she thought her mum sounded posh before, she realises that Andromeda’s accent is a vastly diluted version of this. In a short time, there’s the beep of a car horn from the drive and Narcissa collects her things. Tonks stays put while her mother follows her to the door, hearing vaguely their conversation.

“It was nice to see you.”  
“Mhm. I’ll make sure to send you photos from the wedding and the move. Please do write.”  
“Do you really think father checks your messages?”  
“It’s never a bad idea to be cautious.”

When her mum has brought through a cuppa for Tonks and they’ve gotten past their resumed pleasantries, Tonks realises she has no desire whatsoever to talk about her pregnancy right now. It just doesn’t seem like the right time. Andromeda is tense, pale and jittery from her sister’s visit and sloshes tea onto her lap twice in her distraction. She gets like this when she’s anxious, and Tonks doesn’t want to add to that with such a big announcement. She just wishes she knew more about her mum’s relationships with her sisters, because she had always believed they were fully out of the picture.

She wouldn’t lie and say she’s not even a little offended that her mum never told her she was still in contact with Narcissa. She always assumed she was privy to her mum’s private life, though she guesses most kids do.

After dinner once her dad’s home, Tonks chats with her parents about university, about her dorm-mates, about the best recipes for chicken soup and the possible benefits of eating gluten free. Then her dad drives her to the train station and she goes back to her flat, melancholy, disappointed, no less anxious than before. She gets travel sick on the train as it bends around the tracks, and vomits on the Kings’ Cross platform to the staff’s dismay.

“I’m sorry, I’m pregnant,” she explains when they rush over to check on her, calling someone to come and clean up. The staff, an older woman, pats her back and offers her a place to sit down and some water, but Tonks just shakes her head and rushes off to the university housing, mouth tasting sour.

Sirius sighs and flops back on the couch. They’re at Rem’s place, even though it’s tiny - given that James and Peter had pretty much packed up their flat entirely, they were running low on options unless they wanted to camp out at Tonks’ student dorms. One leg crossed over his knee at the ankle, Sirius taps his thighs impatiently as his friends sit and stand around seeming uncomfortable. What’s the issue? They’re meant to be going out, but instead they’re just congregating here doing nothing.

He couldn’t help but get impatient sometimes. After all, it wasn’t easy for Sirius to get out much whenever he wanted, and he was feeling pretty lucky that he was here just now given how Rudy was in a bad mood basically all the time right now. He wanted to make the most of his time out here so that he wouldn’t feel like he had wasted time.

“M’going out for a smoke. Lily and James should be here soon, yeah?” he asks, standing up and stretching. Remus glances up at him with sad, tired eyes. There’s no reason for him to be having that look on him, as far as Sirius knows, but he hasn’t got the patience to question it. When he gets the affirming nod from Tonks, he snags his pack of cigarettes off the coffee table and heads out to the balcony that runs along the back of all the flats on this side of the floor. It’s mostly disused, cluttered with some bent out of shape plastic chairs, an ash tray, a bag of rubbish and pieces of a messed up clothes line in an IKEA bag. At least it’s quiet.

Remus glances at Tonks and Peter, who are doing the same as him. Looking awkward. Peter seems especially nervous, shaking hands and pale. Remus guesses it must be to do with keeping the secret - Pete doesn’t like lying, or lying by omission. He has no idea that Peter has been watching Sirius for the past twenty five minutes, waiting for him to make eye contact, waiting for him to bring up what happened the other day.

“Remus, he doesn’t know yet…” Tonks mumbles, half a question. Remus gulps and shakes his head. “Do you think he’s worked it out? Maybe that’s why he’s mad…”  
“Yeah, maybe it’s that!” Peter insists, keen to divert any attention away from him and his situation. Remus quirks a brow at him before shaking his head again.  
“He hasn’t worked it out. He doesn’t keep it quiet when he’s pissed off about big stuff.”

Standing up, Remus rubs his hands together before straightening his shoulders.  
“I’ll go and see if he’s alright. Maybe it’s Rudolphus.”

Sirius looks up from his cigarette, only two puffs in, when Remus shuts the sliding door over behind him. It strikes him then that they’re alone together, which never happens anymore. He feels his heart squeeze, uncomfortable at the realisation that he never seems to spend any time with Remus. Rem is always busy when Sirius can get out, and if he isn’t busy then they end up meeting along with James and Pete at least, if not Lily and Tonks as well.

“Hey,” he mumbles, sounding like a slightly sullen teen. He feels sheepish for being grouchy when he’s actually getting to spend time with Remus. It’s just that, nothing ever feels right between them these days. Remus is awkward, on edge, and if Sirius isn’t dazed and anxious then he feels like he can never get through to Rem. They used to be inseparable, just like Sirius and James are, and Sirius used to be like an overly affectionate puppy whenever Remus was around. Now he feels like he can’t bridge the gap to even put a hand on Remus’s arm. He feels like he’s not allowed, and he’s not sure who forbade it.

“Hi,” Remus sighs, smiling nervously as he stands next to Sirius, arms on the rusty metal railing. Sirius seems tense just next to him, or maybe he’s just cold? He didn’t bring his jacket out with him, so that would make sense. He sidles closer, his shoulder nudging up against Sirius’s before their arms touch properly, Rem trying to share his warmth.

Sirius seems shocked, looking up at Remus with wide eyes, the smoke leaving his mouth in a little ‘oh’ before he snaps out of it, a little pink but trying to brush by his momentary confusion. He feels Rem’s hand on his hip, frowns at it and then realises his cig packet is being stolen from him.  
“Hey!” he complains, but Remus just grins and holds it over his head, busy removing one from the packet and placing it between his own lips. “Will your girlfriend not tell you off for that?”

Remus raises a brow and rolls his eyes a bit, snorting as he fumbles Sirius’s lighter.  
“Why would she bother?” he asks, noting how resentful Sirius sounded when he asked. That doesn’t make any sense. “Not her business. But your bloody lighter doesn’t work,” he grumbles, and Sirius sighs, turning to Remus properly.  
“Here,” he offers, cupping the back of Rem’s neck to pull him down to his level, their cigarettes touching as Remus watches him over the short distance between their mouths. He takes a drag, the cigarette lighting from the smouldering end of Sirius’s cigarette, and pulls back when Sirius finally loosens his grip on his neck. It feels like a loss when they break the eye contact and make more space between them.

“You two seem to be a lot closer recently, so I just thought, I dunno, she might have started telling you off for stuff,” Sirius laughs without a lot of feeling, and Remus glances at him from the corner of his eye. Does he think it’s normal for your significant other to try and control what you do? He bites his lip on the question, takes a drag and flicks ash over the railing.  
“Closer? I don’t know about that. I guess we spend more time together, but she gets pissy at me basically all the time,” he snorts, and Sirius shrugs.  
“You are pretty infuriating,” he points out, and Remus mocks offense, a hand over his heart as he gasps.  
“Speak for yourself!”

They chuckle and then lapse into silence, smoking together and watching people walk along the pavement below.  
"Do you ever feel like… uh," Sirius starts, tone surprisingly serious. Remus looks at him questioningly, seeing him gnaw his lip before he waves a hand. "Nah, forget it."

Things really have changed. Remus and Sirius had always shared basically everything with one another, and now Sirius is deciding against telling him something. Remus would feel offended or upset by it, but he guesses he's even more guilty of secret keeping and saying nothing when things ought to be said.

"C'mon, Moony, let's go in. James and Lily should be here," he grins, reaching up and ruffling Rem's hair, as if he had flipped a switch and become his usual carefree self again. Remus stubs his cigarette out and follows him through the sliding doors, wishing he knew what words to say, wishing he didn't have anything he had to say in the first place.

James and Lily are indeed there when they get back into the flat, barely through the door. Lily seems to be hesitating on shedding her coat, and James casts a meaningful look from Tonks to Remus to Sirius. Sirius seems none the wiser, crossing to James to give him a rough hug that he extends to Lily.  
“S’good to see you guys. Lils, I feel like it’s been ages. Did you get shorter?” he teases, like he always does after a while apart. Lily, as always, grumbles and swats at him fondly before she sinks into the hug. But today, everyone apart from Sirius seems to be tense, all waiting for something.

“So, what are we doing?” Sirius asks, reanimated by the arrival of the final couple members of the group. He turns to face everyone, Remus standing just behind the sofa. “Celebrate the lovely couple moving in together, gotta make it a good one!”

The air tastes stale to Lily as she looks around, wondering when it will happen, because she knows it will. It just will. James seems to be trying to keep pace with Sirius, saying something that buzzes past her ears. She hates it, hates seeing Sirius so bright and knowing that they’re keeping something from them. But she can’t be the one to say it.

“Well, what does our ringleader think?” James asks, prodding Sirius in the ribs which makes him laugh. Sirius hums thoughtfully, tapping his lips before answering.  
“I reckon we should all go out and get smashed. Still haven’t done that with my little cousin,” he grins, reaching over and ruffling Tonks’s hair. She seems shocked at the affection, but then they’ve not spent a great deal of time together and besides, they only fell into the same social circle because of Remus, not because of their familial ties.

There’s a long gap, a hesitation that makes Tonks think she might be sick. And then Remus speaks up in a voice so thin that Sirius barely hears him.  
“We can’t. Tonks can’t… Tonks can’t drink.”

Sirius frowns, looks between them, amusement morphing into confusion. At first he thinks he’s forgotten Tonks’s age, maybe she’s just 17? Some uni students are, but he really doubts that Remus would date someone that young, and besides, he couldn’t be as far off as that on her age, could he? And then he sees how tense everyone is, like they’re waiting for him to say something, and the fact that Tonks looks sick, and how Remus and her have been spending so much time together recently. 

“Why? Is she pregnant or something?” he jokes feebly, and there’s a collective inhale. Sirius blinks, looks between the nervous faces of his friends. James, Lily, Remus and Peter all look ashamed of themselves. Tonks just looks nervous. He doubts it’s her fault that he hasn’t been told, since Remus will have done the telling to this lot. But if they all look so nervous, then they must all know... They all knew before him, didn’t they?

It shouldn’t be a big deal. It shouldn’t hurt. Sirius feels his lip tremble minutely and he forces it to stop by biting down on it. It’s probably because he’s always stuck with Rudy that they didn’t tell him. Maybe they didn’t get time. But then why not even call him? Why not ask him to meet up for something important? Why not… Why…

“H...How far along are you?” Sirius asks, directing at Tonks because she won’t lie to him, will she? She looks up at him with wide, slightly guilty eyes.  
“Around 10 weeks,” she admits. “We found out at like, 5,” she adds, pushing her hair from her face roughly.

It takes a few moments to sink in. 5 weeks to tell him. Sirius forces a smile that feels and looks false.  
“Who was the first to find out? I mean, apart from Remus.” His tone is so forcedly jovial that it sounds aggressive, and the others look between them. James clears his throat.  
“Me.” Sirius pins him with a cold look, even as his breath comes out in staggering, uncertain puffs.  
“So let me guess. James, then Lily, then Peter.” Peter flinches at the mention of his name, wondering if that will be followed with anything else that Sirius is mad at him about. There’s nothing. Just the wait for the confirmatory nod from James.

“Great. Well,” Sirius laughs, full of disbelief and hurt, picking up his jacket and checking he has his stuff. “Have a great fucking night, guys.” With that, he slams out of the flat with a flourish, pelting down the stairs and out to the street.

He’s yards down the road when Remus flings the main door shut, pursuing him in that weird jog people do when they’re not quite running but still trying to hurry. Sirius doesn’t turn to see him, knows it will be him or James and either way it doesn’t make much difference. Rem grabs his arm and Sirius spins away, flinging Rem’s hand off.

“What, come to tell me any more big news? Getting married maybe?” he spits, venomous, and Remus gives him a pleading look.  
“Pads please, don’t -”  
“Don’t what? Don’t react, don’t care that you just didn’t bother to tell me? I thought… I thought we were best friends! Fuck, I didn’t even think you and Tonks were serious!” His voice keeps on creeping up a register in the way that embarrasses him, and he tries not to hear it but it burrows into his ears and pisses him off even more. Why can’t he just sound mad, why does it have to show that he’s upset? Sounding upset just makes him vulnerable, and it always gets him smacked like a bad dog, and he hates it, he hates this.

“We- we’re not!” Remus defends, reaching for Sirius again, trying to get him to stop. He doesn’t want to chase him down the street and cause a scene. “Well, we weren’t.”  
“Reckon this makes it pretty bloody serious, Remus,” Sirius remarks scathingly. Remus flinches.  
“I… Yeah, it does, but I don’t know why you’d have a problem with that.” Instead of sounding mad he just sounds like he’s begging, and Remus knows he’s flushing dark red with embarrassment and nerves. Sirius eyes him coldly. He’s finally slowing down from his backwards stride, looking like he might stop.  
“You can do what the fuck you want. I just thought you’d tell me. I just thought you’d... I thought you’d want me to know.”

And there goes the vulnerability again. Sirius winces, turns his face away to hide the fact that he feels like he’s going to cry, picks up the pace. Remus catches his wrist and Sirius barely tries to pull away, just letting himself be pulled to a stop, but he’s freezing up now like he’s bracing himself and Remus halts entirely, unsure how to proceed.

“Of course I wanted you to know… I… I want to tell you everything, you know…? I don’t know why I didn’t tell you Sirius, just please believe me that it isn’t personal.”

The ‘nothing personal’ line only serves to ignite Sirius’s fury again, and he jerks away with a glower.  
“I’d think it was nothing personal if you hadn’t told everyone and their aunt before you even thought of me. But you know what Remus? Congratulations. You knocked your girlfriend up. I’m so fucking happy for you.”

Remus is still standing there five minutes later when Sirius is long gone, taken off at a run to go somewhere, anywhere where he wouldn’t feel like he was useless, unwanted, pathetic.

\----------

Lily gnaws a hangnail on her thumb, watching Mary and Dorcas bicker over how to organise her linen cupboard. They had come over to help her unpack her stuff into the new place, finally moving in. James would be moving in next week, but she wanted to do it now when she had a long weekend from uni and wouldn’t have to worry about being up at 7am for classes. After the drama of the other day she still feels on edge, wondering if she should reach out to Sirius or leave him to sort it with Remus and Tonks. It wasn’t her fault that she had found out first, but she still feels like she could have been more active in insisting Rem tell him. It just hadn’t felt like her business, and she didn’t want to be accused as pushy or overbearing. She knew how much the guys liked to tease her for being like her mother, after all.

“I don’t know why folding a fitted sheet matters so much anyway, just roll it up and be done with it,” Mary grumbles, snatching the botched fold job that Doe is making fun of her for back and stuffing it onto the shelf. Lily snorts and watches them before intervening as Dorcas gets up on tip toes to take the sheet back down and redo it.  
“Look, I’m gonna teach you a life hack right now, and in return you’re going to make me coffee,” Lily states, folding the sheet haphazardly before grabbing a pillow case and folding up its matching duvet set and other pillow case, tucking the collected set and fitted sheet into the unfolded pillow case. “Keeps it all together so you don’t have to search for all the matching bits. Learned it off the internet.”

Dorcas and Mary look at her like she’s just done a magic trick, jaws to their chests before Mary finally takes the bedclothes package from Lily’s hands and puts it up on the shelf again somewhat reverently.  
“Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique,” Doe lists off in a terrible American accent as they all clatter through to the kitchen for coffee and biscuits.

Once they’re sitting around on the floor on a smattering of throw cushions that will eventually be put on the not-yet-assembled bed, Lily gets to dunking an obscene number of cookies into her coffee one after the other. Her friends watch her, noting her rather voracious biscuit intake. She always does this when she gets nervous.

“What’s on your mind, Lils?” Doe asks after a pause, sipping her coffee daintily. Mary watches her with affection before she turns back to Lily, who is looking at them with obvious nerves.

“To be honest, there’s a lot of things… I just… I don’t know, how do I even start?” she sighs, and Dorcas nods understandingly. Of them all, Mary is the one who isn’t really any good with emotional stuff. She’s a bit too pragmatic and direct, and Lily used to think she was like that too, but she’s realising over time that she’s not as unflappable as she likes to pretend to be - hence the fact she’s steadily working through a whole tube of Maryland cookies.

“Well usually it’s best to just start,” Mary shrugs, and Lily smiles. Trust her to have such blunt feedback.  
“Wise words,” she laughs, as Dorcas rolls her eyes at her girlfriend’s point-blank way of speaking.

“It’s like, everything. Like, Sirius blew up when he found out Tonks’ is pregnant, and I can’t blame him… And I feel bad, y’know, because Tonks is probably stressing about it, and I should have made sure that Sirius knew before that, and Remus is such a bloody idiot for telling him like that and… Ugh, and that on top of the fact that I’m moving, and planning a wedding, and still studying, and I just…”

Unsaid: And I really want to talk to someone about this but the person I want to talk to isn’t here.

The desire to talk about it at all dries up after a few more sentences. Dorcas soothes her as best as she can and brings more biscuits, but eventually she sees there’s no point because Lily is clamming up. She knows Lily usually talks about this stuff with Marlene, and Marlene is still in Jordan. She just wishes Lily wasn’t so singular that she seemed to always have just one or two people she would really talk to.

“How did you guys know you’re into girls?” Lily asks eventually, and Mary looks at her in clear shock because it was a total curveball from what they had been talking about - mainly, the stress of moving and how you never knew someone until you had moved in with them. “I just want to talk about something that isn’t to do with my baggage, y’know?” she explains, but it’s weak and Mary feels like there must be a point to this.

“I just knew. Like, one time I went on pornhub and I realised I only ever really looked at the girls. And I was like, ‘is it gay if i watch lesbian porn’ and then I’d be like ‘noooo’ but. Yeah. It was very gay. I’m gay as fuck,” Mary snorts, and Lily bursts out laughing because it’s so frank that it’s startling and yet makes total sense. Of course Mary would hardly even blink at talking about her porn preferences.  
“For me, it was that I kept on looking at Emmeline Vance in all my classes and imagine playing with her hair and she always looked at me like she hated me because she’s like a cat and I simultaneoulsy realised I liked girls and that I like girls who look like they could kill me,” Dorcas sighs, and Mary smirks.  
“Aww, thanks.”

Lily sighs inwardly as she watches them, wondering how they make it look so easy. It’s not like she’s ever had a problem with gay people, but she has never been able to imagine herself as someone who would like girls as well as boys. Her friends always teased her as being the straightest person in the group, along with James as well - though Lily happens to know James is a little more than bicurious. It had become a bit of a mantle, because while most people talk about the token gay friend, hers had the token straight. She had gotten so used to it and never really thought about it, given how busy she always was, that when doubts entered her mind it had been a huge panic.

“Why do you ask?” Doe asks her, a mischievous light in her eyes that makes Lily worried that she’s managed to let more on than she intended to.  
“Yeah, got a crush?” Mary asks, confirming that she has indeed let more on than she wanted. Lily can feel herself turning bright red and wishes she wasn’t because that’ll only let them in on the fact that she’s got something to hide.

“Oh my god, you do!” they crow in unison, like schoolgirls talking about the next love interest with the same passion as the last. Lily grimaces - she’s engaged, for goodness sake, she doesn’t want to have this kind of talk. All the same, it’s been bottled up for so long that it is kind of difficult to deny the way it clicks up against the back of her teeth wanting to be let out.

“Is that why you’re stressing about the move and the wedding? You think… I mean, I don’t know, it’s causing doubts?” Lily balks.  
“No! No, I definitely love James. It’s just, well, I thought I was straight, and, I also thought I was… Monogamous. I mean, I’ve always been pretty vanilla? So… This is really… Um, difficult.”

Dorcas lets out a soft ‘aww’ and pulls Lily in for a hug, and the gesture is so kind that Lily surprises herself by starting to cry. Both Mary and Doe seem totally shocked by this, holding their friend together as she sniffles on the floor of her new apartment, thinking about some unknown girl. It really did come as a shock to them that Lily could have a crush on someone else, never mind a girl - she always seemed pretty sure of herself, and so it came across that she was sure about being straight and not poly.

“I don’t really know what to do about it. I feel like I shouldn’t do anything. But it’s been ages and it’s not going away, and I feel like I should tell James but, what if he thinks that means I don’t love him as much? I just… I want this all to be okay,” Lily sobs, and all the while she’s thinking about how there’s more than one person she can never say this to, because the other would work out it’s about her, and then Lily would really have cocked everything up.

\--------

Polly sighs and flips through the pictures of prospective bridal gowns on her phone, holding the blasted thing about a foot away from her face because she’s put her glasses down and can’t remember where they are. She really needs to remember to get in touch with Lily and tell her that she should consider putting on a bit of weight before the wedding, because her ankles do look so knobbly in these pictures. Hey, it might sound rude, but she’s a mother well versed in tough love.

Taking to her laptop, she faffs about signing into her email account - really, she can’t quite work out this whole WhatsApp thing - and goes to make herself a cup of tea before settling in.

'Lily dear,

Hello! It’s mum. I was looking over those pictures of your dresses the other day, and I’ve been thinking that really if you like the one that’s shorter (god knows I don’t) then you should consider putting on a little weight. Your ankles are so knobbly, darling, you’ve got your dad’s legs. Anyway, that isn’t all I wanted to email about.

Bullseye, the neighbour’s cat, keeps crapping in the back garden so your dad is in a right huff today. He says it’s scaring Pusskins, who I think your dad loves more than me. Ah, middle age! You’ll get there one day. Either way, your dad fell asleep on the couch with Pusskins on his lap instead of mowing the grass so I guess I’ll be doing that too. Sod. Might make some bread later today if you’d like to come round this weekend and have some. I know you’re moving so maybe a break would be nice? We’re not that far out of London, you know!

How is the move going, anyway? I hope you remembered to clean the windows and down the back of the radiators. It’s always best to get that nitty gritty stuff out of the way first, and cleaning the windows before you bother with curtains is a good idea. Watch out for those streaks though, you were always shite at avoiding streaks here. Maybe just to get out of doing the chores? Wouldn’t put it past you!

Anyway, I was on the phone last night with your sister and I realised she doesn’t know you’re engaged. I guessed you wanted to tell her yourself so I kept it very hush hush but I know how you two always bicker so, I wanted to make sure - you are inviting Petunia, yes? I do love you both so much and I know you two have had your tiffs but you’re both adults now so I hope you’ll act like it! 

Right, I’ll get going on the grass before it decides to rain. Always rains when you want to mow! Remember to call - your dad misses you a lot.

Have a nice day! Love you poppet  
Mum

P.S your dad says he and pusskins say hi'

-

Lily sits on her phone and checks her email. She reads her mum's message with the usual blend of fond exasperation, until the end. At which point she drops her phone and swears.  
"Oh for fuck's sake."


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
> I hope you're all keeping safe in this difficult time. I know things are hard for many of us, which is also why my update comes as late as it is. But I hope you'll enjoy this chapter! I spent ages debating on where to take the plot with this one - being pretty impatient makes it hard to keep this slow burn. But there's so much YEARNING!!! And also some pretty major plot developments. Let me know what you think!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings:  
> Vomit/throwing up,  
> alcohol, binge drinking,  
> blood mention  
> abuse - physical, mental, emotional (domestic)  
> past child abuse mention

[the day after the reveal] 

To say he’s hungover would be an understatement. Sirius doesn’t get to drink much, but he had been in such a bad mood the night before that, despite his common sense, he had gone way overboard. Now he is paying for it. He had fallen asleep in a bus stop - a bus stop of all places - blackout drunk, and had somehow woken up without having had all his stuff stolen. At least he was lucky in one way. For the next twenty minutes he had sat in the same bus stop he had slept in, head in his hands, vomiting onto the pavement between his feet. As if he needed any more reason to feel disgusting.

Deciding to walk it off a bit and get some fresh air, Sirius stopped in at a corner shop and got cigarettes, water, a pack of gum. He gurgled the water and spat on the street outside to the disgusted looks of many around him. Then, spearmint gum and a cigarette, to get rid of the taste. He felt awful. Absolutely awful.

There wasn’t really anywhere to go. Rudolphus was usually out around now anyway… Work or whatever. He could go home, get a shower, a nap in bed rather than on a bus stop bench. That would be good. Checking his phone, he sees several missed calls from Remus, James and Lily, but he didn’t have anything to say to them right now. He was still angry. Upset, more than angry, but anger was an easier mask to wear and so he kept it.

Heading off in the rough direction of his flat, or more Rudy’s flat since his parents had bought it for him, he tries to keep himself walking in a straight line. He might still be drunk, but he isn’t sure how to tell symptoms of inebriation from the symptoms of a hangover. He wonders what he even did last night to get that drunk. He certainly couldn’t tell any of his friends about it, or they would get all worried and start to act like they cared.

It is a spiteful thought, he knows. His friends care for him a lot, and he’s aware of the fact, but he’s still wallowing in self pity about the events of the day before preceding his crazy night on the town which he now regrets a lot. In the end he just doesn’t know why Remus didn’t tell him, and why no one suggested he should. Of course he is none the wiser that most of the other people present did do just that, which means his ire remains unchecked. Plus, the fact that Peter knew something about it before Sirius did - that's the icing on the cake, really. That little rat, who’s been hanging about with Rudolphus apparently, is more entitled to the information. Sirius steels his jaw and strides forward faster, the cold, exhaust-fume-ridden city air waking him up and sobering him.

He supposes he will let his friends stew a little longer while he sorts his head out. Them when he’s got a clearer mind on it all he will talk to them, brimming with forgiveness. It’s not like he ever stays mad at his friends anyway.

Eventually he gets sick of walking and gets on the tube, getting out at Blackfriars and crossing the Thames to the stylish, artsy condos near the Tate Modern. Sirius reckons that if his parents hadn’t come to hate him so much, they probably would have set him up in his own place like this, using funds from their apparently bottomless bank account. Cracking his neck, he looks up at the imposing skyscraper, and hopes to whatever higher power there is that Rudolphus isn’t home.

Of course, higher powers, like cell signal, don’t seem to get through so well when crowded by skyscrapers. Or that’s what Sirius thinks sarcastically as he tries the door handle and finds the flat open, meaning Rudy is definitely home. Kicking off his sodden shoes at the door and toeing them out of direct sight because they have sick on them he will need to clean, he sheds his jacket and tries to make a beeline for the bathroom. Fuck trying to stay in Rudy’s good graces right now by going to say hi, because nothing about his current messy appearance is going to endear him to his boyfriend.

A shadow moves over the copious light from the floor to ceiling windows, and Rudy stands at the lip of the hallway with his hands on his hips, framed in light and masked otherwise in shadow. He is clearly looking at Sirius who feels caught like a common criminal, slouched over in the flat he has lived in for a long stretch of time now. There is a ticking time bomb in the room, and he doesn’t know who will set it off - him, accidentally, or Rudolphus on purpose.

“Where have you been?” Rudy asks, his voice velvety soft, low, dangerous. Sirius swallows and feels his throat rapidly drying, causing him to cough weakly. Apparently that’s enough of an answer, as Rudolphus continues. “I know you weren’t with your little ragtag group of friends, so don’t try and fool me.”

The room seems to contract. Sirius feels his head spinning again. He wants a shower, a cold shower to empty all the hot air that he imagines is filling up his brain instead of helpful answers.

“I went out. You told me I could,” he points out, forcing his voice stable and low as well. Rudy wants him vulnerable, and anger and fear are warring in Sirius’s gut like fire and ice. It feels fierce and horrible, and he wonders which he wants to win. As a brave man, he does not revel in being made to be afraid, but showing fear and submission tends to make the ride he is sure to come a bit easier. Every day he senses he is sacrificing his pride a little more just to get by. Why did he ever allow his wings to be clipped like this?

“I told you that you could go out with your friends. James, Peter, even that pretty boy you’re so fond of.”

In that moment it is non negotiable who will set off the bomb. Sirius has never, ever responded well to people trashing Remus, be that when they were in high school or now, when they are both adults. He still feels strong protective instincts from when Sirius was the bold one with status, and Remus was thin, weedy, scared, couldn’t hold his own against school bullies. James has always been able to handle himself, and he looked out for Peter too. Sirius has always felt more obligated to fuss over Rem. Even now, when he is supposed to be mad at him.

“What, the one who doesn’t batter me every time I do something he doesn’t like?” Sirius hisses, heart in his throat. There are two seconds to prepare, and then Rudolphus has crossed the distance and has grabbed Sirius by the hair, fist pressing uncomfortably at the knoll of bone where his skull meets his neck. Sirius jerks, body tending, fire in his eyes refusing to gutter and fade the way Rudy likes to see.

“You ungrateful little bitch,” Rudolphus snarls, and his voice is venom, his breath sour after his morning coffee. Sirius thinks he might throw up, a dizzying wave of nausea crashing over him and leaving him powerless to do much when he’s thrown to the floor, landing painfully on his elbow and shoulder, feeling the hessian rug burn on his skin. Stupid to have taken off his coat and shoes. He could have made a run for it.

“You know how much I do for you? Keep you here like some sort of trophy? Some fucking award you are - disobedient, whiny and stupid. You really can’t get the fact that I fucking OWN you through your thick skull, can you?” Sirius tries to roll onto his back, spitting onto the rug as it fills up his throat, taking laboured breaths. Rudy sneers down at him and presses a foot into his prone abdomen, making Sirius cry out. “I’m the only thing standing between you and your batshit family. Get it? If I wanted I could toss you out and you’d have to go crawling back to mummy and daddy. Think they’d treat you any better than this?”

He leans down, yanking Sirius up by the collar, shaking him like a rag. Sirius coughs, swallows around the sensation of nausea building.

“Yeah, I’ve seen the scars on your back when I fuck you. Not exactly a mummy’s boy, are you? Or a daddy’s boy at that. You think because you’re a big boy now they’ll treat you any different. You need me, simple as that.” Rudolphus is straddling him now, one hand on his collar, the other bracing himself against the floor by Sirius’s head.

Sirius feels cold. So incredibly cold as he looks up at Rudolphus, meeting his gaze. He wants to get out of here. Needs to get out of here, even. He musters what strength he has, sucks in a deep breath, and brings his knee up, hard. Rudolphus shrieks, taking the hit right where it hurts most, kneeling up on his haunches to grasp at his crotch. Sirius takes his wavering balance as the opportunity it is and punches his boyfriend in the jaw, sending the taller man sprawling backwards, knocking his head onto the hardwood. Staggering to his feet, Sirius grabs his coat.

“I don’t need you. Unlike you, I actually have friends,” he spits, before slamming out of the flat and running for what literally feels like his life.

He isn’t sure how many times he’s stepped on rocks and pebbles and glass. Of course he didn’t have time to put his shoes on. He sprints past people who gawk at him as if he’s gone mad, and he supposes he might have - madness is supposed to run in his family line, after all. Making it to the tube station, he runs blindly down the stairs once he’s through the gate and hears a bored looking staff member shouting something after him, probably to slow down and not run on the stairs. He doesn’t care. He all but crashes into the backs of people crowding on the next departing train, forcing them all to shuffle forward and find space where there is none, the doors hissing closed so close to him he feels the motion against his jacket.

Sirius feels bad for the people near him, and not just for bashing into them unceremoniously. He smells like shit, and looks like shit probably. His stomach aches, his feet are wet with whatever he’s stepped in - rainwater, piss, though he might be bleeding through his torn socks too. His hair is tangled and matted, his breath stinks of vomit barely even covered by the gum, which he takes a piece of now. Before him, a lady in a nice trench coat blinks at him as if she is unsure what she is seeing, glancing down at his shoeless feet and pursing her lips. Sirius smiles charmingly at her, and she turns away with a wrinkled nose.

When he alights, the initial buzz of adrenaline has passed and he’s left with the throbbing pain in his shoulder and elbow. The skin is scratched up between the two joints, he can tell without looking, and he glances down at his bust up knuckles in wonder. His head still hurts, spinning from the vast range of emotions, hormones, endorphins, the hangover. He makes it out of the station, takes a right and starts walking even though his feet scream at him to stop. His lungs labour to oxygenate his blood, his heart pounds, he thinks he might keel over soon if he isn’t careful.

When he left, he wasn’t even sure where he was going, but he seems to be coming full circle, back through the familiar parking lot and shoving in through the building doors when someone fortunately leaves just as he reaches it. He wants to take the stairs two at a time, but his muscles couldn’t manage the heft, so he plods up them like an exhausted horse at the end of a long gallop. Pushing down on the handle and finding it open, he steps in, slams the door behind him and staggers into the living room.

Tonks has a bowl of cereal in her hand, one hand raising the spoon to her mouth, dripping milk down her expanded chest as she stops abruptly to look at her cousin standing in the entryway. Sirius looks at her with exaltation, a broad grin spread on his face as if the last she saw of him wasn’t in a blind and petulant fury.

“I made it.”

Directly after his bright and hopeful proclamation, Sirius had swayed to the kitchen wastebasket and promptly emptied his guts. Tonks had called Remus, who had been in class, and Remus called James and Lily. The whole time while they waited for the entourage to arrive, Tonks stared at Sirius as if he had grown a second head.

Sirius, for the most part, sprawled listless on the sofa, eventually beginning to snore. The smell of him turned Tonks’s sensitive stomach, and she excused herself from the room in silence. She figured Sirius would be alright without her watching him sleep.

In the current moment, Remus is in a frenzy as he bolts up the stairs and crashes unceremoniously into the flat, tripping over Sirius’s discarded jacket and knocking his shoulder off the wall as he tries to catch his balance. Huffing in uneven breaths, he stares at Sirius who is waking up, eyes blinking open blearily as he turns to the source of the noise.

Remus feels so much relief just to see Sirius there that he could cry. He basically charges over to his friend and drops to his knees on the rug next to the couch, surveying Sirius’s state with wild eyes. Sirius stares back at him in sleepy complacency, letting Remus pick up his hand and eye the rawness of his knuckles from landing a well-deserved punch on Rudolphus.

All he knows is that Sirius came in, seeming hungover and beat up but somewhat euphoric, and said ‘I made it’. So many different possibilities came to mind, like someone trying to hurt him - Rudy or otherwise - or that he had taken drugs to cause his unusual behaviour. Maybe something had happened last night? It hasn’t been all that long since they saw one another, just the day before after the disastrous reveal of Tonks’s pregnancy - and where is she, anyway? - and he hadn’t expected to see Sirius for another few days at least. When Sirius gets mad, he seems to take a while to come down from it. All the same, he does eventually and then it’s like nothing changed at all. That’s how it’s always been.

The sudden change of heart, to turn up here of all places, must mean something extraordinary has happened though. Because Sirius is stubborn, completely set in his ways in fact. Remus is trying to work it out just like this, the two of them staring at each other like they were facing a complicated puzzle.

Sirius mumbles something unintelligible under his breath and pulls his hand away, shifting upright on the sofa from his slouched position. Remus stays where he is roughly, attentive as he takes in the scratch and bruise over Padfoot’s cheekbone. He guesses he should probably say something right about now rather than just ogling his friend, who is clearly injured and - why isn’t he wearing any shoes?

“Pads, where the fuck are your shoes?” he asks with incredulity, and Sirius blinks, looks down at his feet clad only in sodden and slightly bloody socks, then snorts.  
“Didn’t have time to put them on.”

Tonks pokes her head out of the bedroom around then and looks at the two of them, a hand held over her nose. Remus stares blankly at her, and suddenly becomes aware of the fact that he’s mad at her - she should have stayed here with Sirius, in case he choked on vomit or was seriously hurt. What if they needed an ambulance, and she hadn’t noticed because she was in the bedroom? He can admit that Sirius does smell frankly atrocious, but that’s not really an excuse.

“Are you gonna come in, or…?” he asks her, and she catches the irate tone and narrows her eyes at him.  
“What, am I interrupting something?” she shoots back, and Remus is about to say something equally rash when he remembers he has more important things to deal with at the moment, such as the now mostly alert Sirius who smells like he needs hosed down in disinfectant. Turning away from his girlfriend without a word, Remus looks up at Sirius again before standing up and perching on the edge of the coffee table, so he can look Sirius in the eye more easily. Tonks quietly enters but stands in the kitchenette, back against the fridge door, staring at the back of Sirius’s head and pointedly ignoring Remus, just as he’s ignoring her.

“What happened, Sirius?” Remus finally asks, though before his friend can answer the door bangs open once more and James and Lily come flying in in a panic, the two of them wide eyed as they hurry over to Sirius’s side. Sirius looks at them with bewilderment, obviously unaware that the rallying call had been sent out.

“Are you ok?” Lily asks, voice high and thin. She knows Sirius hates getting fussed over but right now she feels his health is more important. She moves his hair back out of his face, seemingly unaware of the stench coming off him, checks the scratches and looks down at his feet, seeing the blood on his socks and wrinkling her nose as she quickly removes them. Sirius looks at her with raised brows.  
“Didn’t know you were into that,” he quips, and the room’s tension is broken swiftly thereafter, James bursting into laughter as Lily swats at Sirius with the socks before she throws them into the bin, deciding they’re unsalvageable.

“Shut up,” she returns plainly, but she’s smiling a little bit and the colour is coming back to her face. James sits down next to Remus on the coffee table, the wood creaking with the added weight. Sirius mimicks zipping his lips, and Remus feels bad to break the convivial moment but he needs answers as much as James and Lily do.

“Who did this to you?” he asks, and the room falls silent apart from the occasional rustling of clothes as people shift in their seats. Sirius draws a deep breath, face tight with stress as he pushes his hair back out of his face, pulling himself upright again with some effort.

“Got into a fight with Rudy because I went out last night. Apparently he knew I wasn’t with you guys… I don’t know how.”

Actually, he hadn’t really thought about it until then. But of course, there was only one person absent from their group then, and Sirius had seen him with Rudolphus before. Could it be that Peter had told Rudy? His gut clenched with fury, and he opened his mouth to say something about it before he paused. Peter was still in good graces with the others, and he didn’t really know if they would believe him… What if they thought he was overthinking it or getting it wrong? If they thought his eyes had been tricking him?

He knows the right thing to do would be to simply tell them what he’d seen before he moved on to his speculations. His friends trusted him, they’d understand. But they’d probably take a more democratic approach to the issue, going easier on Peter than Sirius wanted to. Because Sirius had been friends with Peter as long as the rest of them had, but he had very little faith at that moment in the rat-like little git. He didn’t trust him as far as he could kick him.

So he decides to deal with the issue with Peter on his own.

Brushing past that, he continues explaining what had happened - what he had said to Rudy, the punches thrown, the fact that he had actually fought back. Despite the fear he has and the pain he’s in, he feels pretty proud of himself. He knows that his friends want him to get away from Rudy, and Sirius has finally done that. There’s no way he can go back now. That would be like a death sentence.

By the time he’s done, Remus is staring at him with wide eyes, James looks beyond chuffed, and Lily is frowning, standing by her fiance with crossed arms. She gnaws her lip, the first to speak once Sirius is done.

“Do you think he’ll come after you?” she asks, and James glances up at her before nodding slowly. Sirius seems to agree, and Remus does as well although he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t want it to be true. He wants Sirius to feel safe, because he’s finally tried to escape. It’s been a long while since he and Rudy got together, and the relationship was intensely toxic from the start. Sirius kept thinking he could handle it, and he felt responsible for the issues for so long. Sometimes he even still talked about it like he was the problem. But it had gotten to the point that even Sirius could see this wasn’t okay or normal, and as Padfoot’s resentment grew, the fights and beatings had gotten worse and more frequent. It was like Rudy had been able to sense the judgement and impatience for his egotistical attitude and controlling manner, and had tried to beat Sirius back into submission.

It made Remus sick. All he wanted was for his friend to be okay, to be safe. He wanted to protect Sirius with everything he had, but at the same time… He had other responsibilities right now, as well. A glance up at Tonks, watching them all from a distance and clearly feeling uncertain and uncomfortable, reminded him of that. Even if he was mad at her… If Rudolphus was going to come after Sirius, would stepping in fully put Tonks in the line of fire as well? Who knew how far Rudy would go. Would he harm someone else, or was it reserved for his shitty relationships?

Sighing, he glances over at James, who is just beginning to speak.

“I mean, we dunno what he’ll do. Did he say anything about it, Sirius?” Everyone looked at him expectantly, but Sirius just looked miserable all over again.  
“Dunno. And I dunno where I can stay, or how to get my stuff back. Not like he’s just gonna let me in…” he laments, looking down into his lap like a sad puppy. How is he ever gonna escape this? He tries to think of what he’s left behind, how much of it he can’t go without. He could break back in… Not even break, in fact. He still has his keys.

James claps an encouraging hand on Sirius’s arm that makes him wince, so Lily asks him to take the jacket off and let her have a look. The area is bruised and scraped up but thankfully only superficial. Tonks comes a little closer to her cousin as if she’s going to comfort him, but the smell of him puts her off again. She holds a half-closed fist up to her nose and casts a desperate glance at Remus who only glares back. What does she want him to do? Seeming pissed and let down, she opens the balcony door and beats away a couple cobwebs because they freak her out when they get in her hair, letting in some fresh air for them all.

“It’s gonna be okay, Sirius,” Remus reassures, reaching out to him haltingly before eventually settling his hand on his knee. Sirius looks at him like Remus is the only one who can make him feel better, and it breaks Rem’s heart slightly because he can’t do what he wants to right then, pull Sirius into a tight hug and stroke his hair and kiss his forehead. It’s an urge that’s familiar to him, and he tries not to overthink it, instead just squeezing Sirius’s knee softly and forcing a smile. “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”

-

Sirius leans on Remus as they go to the bathroom, feet sore so that he limps, and once they’re in there with the door shut and locked Sirius turns to face Remus before leaning on him fully, his forehead on Rem’s collarbone as his hands tug on his sweater hem. Remus puts his arms around Sirius’s shoulders without hesitating this time, holding him close and resting his chin on top of Siri’s head. They stand there quietly like that for a moment, hearing their friends shuffle around outside, James telling Lily he’ll be back in a minute and leaving with the rustle of the bin bag as Lily asks Tonks where the fabric cleaner is so she can tidy up the sofa. A moment later, the room door opens and closes, probably with Tonks returning to her place in bed.

“Feel a bit pathetic,” Sirius finally mutters, and Remus pulls back, hands on Sirius’s arms as he holds him away enough to look him in the eye. There still isn’t much distance between them, Sirius having to tip his head up to look Remus full in the face, and Rem becomes acutely aware of it when he thinks he sees Sirius’s eyes flick down towards his lips.

“You’re not,” Remus breathes, blinking out of his stupor as he finally relinquishes his grip and takes a nervous step backwards. Sirius eyes him, seeming sad, before he finally takes the hem of his own shirt in his hands and pulls it up over his head.

They’ve been near-naked around each other several times, sharing high school gym classes and skinny dipping on holiday once or twice as well. Remus has only seen Sirius shirtless since he got with Rudy a few times, though, and at that only when Sirius had taken a beating that had left abrasions and nasty bruises on his chest and stomach. It only had negative connotations in the past while, and before it had been something Sirius was largely reticent to do anyway because of the scars on his back. Remus can see how Sirius tries to make himself smaller as he removes his clothes, as if he’s afraid of the scrutiny, and Rem wants nothing more to hold him and tell him how beautiful he is.

But they don’t do that. Remus is in a relationship, Sirius doesn’t like him like that, it’s the sort of thing he thinks about every now and then and always shoves aside. Because as much as everyone teases him about how he feels about Sirius, he just doesn’t see how it could ever happen. Besides, he’s got a kid on the way now, and if that’s not grounding enough to keep his head out of the clouds then what will be? So, instead of pulling Sirius close, he helps him into the shower-bath combination with a respectable distance between them, averting his eyes until the shower curtain is pulled to and the water starts running. They’ve already agreed he’ll stay in here in case Sirius starts feeling dizzy or sick and needs help out, but he isn’t going to play the part of a peeping tom because of it. He isn’t in a bad porno, after all.

Sirius washes himself methodically, going over his hair twice and feeling quietly guilty that he’s using up Remus’s shampoo and conditioner. Still, it’s better this way, because otherwise his hair would have sick in it and he’d get out of the shower smelling little better than before. He can hear Remus playing some game on his phone just a couple of feet away, so he doesn’t take his time with it as much as he’d like to. Sitting down on the bath’s floor with the water beating down on him, he cleans his feet carefully because of the cuts he’s gained on them, and when he’s done and ready to get up to turn the shower off, he puts weight on his bruised arm and hisses.

It must act like an alarm to Remus who is suddenly pulling the curtain back and making Sirius yelp and flinch away like he’s in Psycho or something. Remus flushes and waves his hands in an appeasing gesture, looking up at the ceiling as he tries to gather himself, stuttering through his apologies.  
“Sorry, sorry, I just - do you - why are you on the - um, never mind, just. Are you done? Do you need help up?”

Sirius is beet red and ashamed as he nods, shivering when Remus has turned off the water and supported him to his feet with an arm under Sirius’s armpit, helping him onto the floor mat and handing him a towel. As soon as he can, he averts his eyes again but Sirius still feels startlingly vulnerable as he starts to dry off. The more the steam dissipates, the colder he feels, and he only nods when Remus asks him if he wants him to go and get him some clean clothes.

When Remus returns with the clothes in his arms, Sirius has found a spare toothbrush in the cabinet and his brushing his teeth with gusto, gagging a few times because of his uneasy stomach. The towel around Sirius’s hips is too low, and Remus is following the lines of his hip bones with greedy eyes when he’s called to attention by Sirius spitting the foam down the sink and gargling water noisily.

“Here,” he offers, holding out the neatly folded garments he’s picked out. It’s nothing much, just sweatpants that’ll doubtlessly be too long and a big sweater that Sirius liked to steal anyway, along with a pair of briefs as an afterthought. Sirius shakes them out and gets the boxers mostly on with the towel still in place, but he wobbles getting his second foot through as putting the weight on the scabbing other one is too much. Remus ends up helping him stay upright until he’s got the bare minimum of clothing on, before recognising that he’ll probably need to help with the rest as well.

“Let me,” he requests softly, feeling far too flustered than he should at the simple task of helping his bruised and miserable friend into his clothes. It’s just… Intimate, as he stands close and helps Sirius get his arm into the sleeve, figuring that maybe it’s sprained or something at the elbow or shoulder if he’s struggling as much. Maybe they could put it in a brace or sling to keep it supported? He doesn’t know enough about this stuff to say for sure.

Sirius sits down on the closed toilet with his mouth shut tight, lower lip wobbling in embarrassment as Remus crouches down on one knee and shucks the sweatpants up to Sirius’s lower thighs. Preemptively, because he’s pretty sure Sirius has borrowed these before and had them trailing under his heels, Remus rolls up the cuffs so they sit above Sirius’s ankles. After all, they don’t need him tripping and falling when he’s already sore. Sirius thanks him awkwardly and accepts the help back to his feet, hissing softly at the pain of it as he pulls the sweatpants the rest of the way up. Finally actually clothed, he feels like he can breathe a bit better.

They get back out to the main room, James and Lily sitting on the sofa and Tonks predictably absent. The balcony door is still open so that the smell from before has dissipated, also in part thanks to James taking out the trash. Sirius seems relieved to sit down as Remus fills Lily in on the soreness in his friend’s shoulder and elbow, the two of them glancing over at the man in question.

“If it’s your shoulder then maybe a sling wouldn’t be such a bad idea, nothing hardcore but just the type you can make with an old bedsheet,” she shrugs, heading to Rem’s linen cupboard without asking permission and grabbing the fitted sheet that’s covered in fabric pills and tea-stains. She’s been asking him to get rid of it for years, since they dormed together in uni, and now she’s getting her way in an unexpected manner.

She tears enough for the makeshift sling with relish, and Remus watches her with an arched brow to which she smirks, wiggling her eyebrows at him as James and Sirius watch with bemusement. Once Sirius’s arm is held up to his chest at an angle, James goes to ask Tonks for a hairbrush while Lily sets about making tea. Remus is still just sitting there, looking at Sirius, wondering how to help now.

“I can’t brush it,” he states, but his tone is a little petulant and Remus quirks a brow at it. Sirius stares at Remus pointedly before looking down at the ground, a little awkward and embarrassed, cheeks going red. James quirks a brow at Remus and Sirius, glancing between them until he slowly hands the hairbrush to Remus as if he isn’t really sure what’s going on.

Of course, as Remus stands behind the sofa and brushes out Sirius’s hair, he isn’t deaf to the murmuring behind him of Lily and James, and when he turns to them they mock innocence with wide eyes and smiles. Once he’s working the last of the knots out of Sirius’s wet locks, he hears a soft snore and blinks, leaning over slightly to see that his friend has indeed fallen asleep, drifting off to having his hair brushed.

“Aww,” Lily coos, taking the brush from Rem’s hands and going on tip toe to ruffle his hair, her eyes sparkling with just-untamed intrigue. James is smirking as he leans up on the counter drinking his tea, and Remus flips him off as he sits down on the sofa by the sleeping Sirius. He doesn’t look at either of his friends to know they’re smiling when he puts an arm around Sirius’s shoulders and lets him sleep against his side.


	6. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWs for:
> 
> Physical/emotional domestic abuse mentions  
> Smoking  
> Arranged marriage kind of deal  
> Blackmail/bribery/threatening/stalking  
> Drugs/Drug dealing (no drug use)  
> Pregnancy  
> Insinuated cheating  
> Abusive relationship mention/detail  
> Violence/assault mention

“What the fuck was up with your attitude yesterday?”

Ah. Off to a good start. Remus and Tonks haven’t spoken, Sirius taking up all of Rem’s focus as he recuperated from the shock, among other things. People are coming over soon to help Sirius work out what to do about getting his stuff, and where to live since Rem’s place is constantly occupied by Tonks, with whom there is no extra room for a stray dog. After showering, Remus goes into his room in the morning, trying to massage away the crick in his neck that came about from falling asleep on the sofa with Sirius. Tonks is already awake, sitting up swathed in duvet, scowling at her boyfriend. Remus sighs, ruffles his hair with the towel and throws the soggy, ragged thing down on the floor in a heap when he’s done. He doesn’t look at her directly, just steps over the clothes on the floor to the wardrobe where clean clothes are becoming sparse, especially after giving Sirius one of his last good sweaters.

“Attitude?” he asks, feeling tired, and Tonks snorts derisively. Sometimes Remus is still in that place that cowers from all confrontation, his nerves dialling up at the slightest hint of someone being mad or disappointed. Not today, not in this situation. He basically felt that Tonks had deserved whatever irritation evident on his face the day before, and he hadn’t changed his mind on that overnight.

“Yeah, not helping me out when the smell was making me queasy, that stuff,” she points out, and Remus shrugs into an old plain t-shirt, grabbing his jeans and shucking them up his thighs.  
“Did it maybe occur to you that there were more important things?”

There’s an edge to his voice when he says it that he only feels a little bad for, but most of all he sounds, and feels, tired. The last couple days had been rife with strange happenings, and it’s been awful for his anxiety. His antidepressants are due a refill but he’s not been able to get to the pharmacy, and now he feels about at his wits end. He should be more compassionate, more understanding, but… It’s out of his hands. He’s already said it.

Tonks riles immediately, so easy to piss off despite her usually amicable and humorous demeanour.  
“Are you for real? I didn’t say you should take all the focus off Sirius, I want him safe and well as much as you do! I was asking why you kept on fucking glaring at me. I want to be there for him, but it’s not easy when he smells like dog shit and my stomach turns at even the smell of cooking meat!”

Remus blinks at her, taking a slow, deep breath. It’s fine. He shouldn’t snap back at her. She has a fair point. He’s being too defensive, and he should know better than that. Sometimes he has to remember that she’s only 19. Sometimes he hates himself for being with someone that much younger than him.

“Alright. Well, he doesn’t smell like dog shit now. Is that better?”

She narrows her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest. It clearly isn’t better, which Remus resents. She’s always been fiery, but her and Rem have never been the type to argue, really. It’s weird. They’ve barely even been together for long. Their relationship hadn’t even had a name until the sort of casual way they drifted closer, given the fact that she’s, y’know, pregnant with his baby.

“And I bet you enjoyed helping him out in the shower, yeah.”

A low blow, that’s for sure. Remus doesn’t hesitate, walking straight out the room to leave Tonks sitting in the bed, watching him go. He tries to tell himself she doesn’t mean it, but…

Well.

-

“You could come stay with us but, you’d have to sleep on the sofa,” James shrugs. Sirius looks at him like he’s an idiot.  
“You think a sofa is going to make me change my mind and send me back to Rudy?” he laughs, and James looks sheepish as he pushes his glasses up his nose. Lily snorts and pats his back.  
“Got a point,” she adds, and James grumbles under his breath.

Remus is annoyed. Why does this place have to be so cramped? Not like he doesn’t trust James and Lily to help Sirius back onto his feet by letting him stay at theirs, but he wishes he could offer Sirius to stay here. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? After all, Sirius had come here first, after running away. He hadn’t gone to James’s new place, or even to Peter’s. So isn’t that indicative that this is the better place for him…?

Apart from the whole, pregnant girlfriend who stays here all the time thing. He doesn’t blame Tonks for staying here. Like he’d suggest she should go stay at her dorm, all alone, and struggle through pregnancy that way. No, he is serious about her. He just wishes he could help both of them.

“Well, it’s either ours or I guess you could stay with Peter. I don’t want to just say, okay, you live with us now like I’m adopting you as our kid,” James snorts.  
“Or dog,” Lily grins. Sirius flips her off, but his face doesn’t look as amused anymore. At first she thinks she somehow offended him with the age-old joke, but now that she looks closer, he seems bothered in general. It makes sense, she guesses - this has been a lot in 24 hours. Still, she can’t help but worry about him.

“No. I’ll come stay with you two,” Sirius mutters, standing up and wandering over to the kitchenette to put some bread in the toaster. The four others in the room watch him as he moves, wondering why he sounds so sullen.  
“Oof. Hard nope to Peter I guess,” James jokes, but when Sirius doesn’t laugh or come back with another quip his humour falls flat.

Lily looks at Remus questioningly, but sees the same confusion written on his face.

“Um… Is there something the matter?” Remus asks, seeing that his friends want him to be the one to initiate this conversation. He feels like a dolt saying it, because of course there is. What hasn’t been the matter for Sirius the last couple days? Sirius glances at him, shakes his head and fakes a smile that makes Rem’s stomach clench with nerves.  
“Nah. It’s nothing.”

They drop it.

-

Tonks decides to head back to her dorm that night. Remus looks perplexed as she plops her backpack down on the floor and starts wrestling with the zip to get it done up, overfilled as usual.  
“Is this about this morning?” he asks. If it is, that seems unfair. After all, she had definitely insulted him more than he had her. She glances at him and shakes her head.  
“Nah. Well, kind of. I just… Y’know, we don’t fight, really. And it doesn’t sit right with me that we kinda did. Wondered if it was to do with us being around each other too much, y’know? Small flat like this… There isn’t much, well, space. So I thought we’d do better if we got a breather from one another. I’ll get some of my assignments done, tidy up the place, and you can restore order over here.”

It’s kindhearted and sincere, and Remus is touched by it, smiling at her as he gets up off the couch and grabs his keys.  
“I can walk you back.”

Outside it’s a little humid but not particularly warm. Mild, generally. She walks with her bag on her back, coat tied around her waist, hair pulled up in a ponytail. She toys with it, looking around the street. She hasn’t gone outside much the last week or so, which isn’t like her. She gets antsy when she’s cooped up too long - which means the fact she got so cranky makes even more sense. Remus nudges her lightly with his arm, and she looks up at him with a wan smile.

“Y’know, I was gonna look for a bigger place,” he tells her, looking sheepish. “I mean. I figured that, what with the baby…” They don’t often bring the baby up so plainly, as if it’s some sort of secret. Seems stupid, now he notices, so he figures they should get over it. “I thought it’d be better for us if we have more space.”

Tonks seems surprised, and embarrassed. She rubs her arm, seeming nervous.  
“That’s quite a big step.”

Remus sighs and nods.  
“I know. But since you decided to keep it, and I decided to be a decent dad, boyfriend, etcetera, I felt like I should make more like, future-conscious decisions.” Tonks smiles, even if it’s a little strained.

“Fair. But uh, my lease on the dorm doesn’t round up until summer, so I couldn’t help foot rent until then, and,” she starts, and Remus holds a hand up, waving her worries away before ruffling her hair.  
“It’s okay. Like you said, it’s a big decision, so take some time to think about it? I don’t want to force you to feel like you’re stuck with me or anything, just want to be prepared.”

They reach the campus and wind past the students leaving classes for coffee, the ones running late to lectures scampering over the cobbles, some milling about on the benches, chatting amongst themselves. Tonks looks at them with envy. She was one of them until recently, but now she feels like she’s set apart, even if she isn’t even showing yet. Is she ever going to manage to be a regular university student again? She knows the student body isn’t only comprised of young late-teens to twenty-somethings with no kids or wives, just boyfriends, girlfriends and high class loads and part time jobs, 1 year leases that have them moving around too often until cardboard boxes become a permanent furniture fixture. There are single parents, middle aged people with families, marriages, there are returning students in their 40s and 50s looking to do something different with their lives. Tonks probably isn’t the only pregnant person on campus even right at this moment. But she feels different because of it. She feels all wrong, because she didn’t plan for this. She isn’t the sort to obsess over plans, generally, but such a huge life change… Is she ready?

Remus sees her looking around, eyes dull and mouth pulled down at the corners, draping an arm over her shoulders protectively. He knows how hard this must be for her, how much it must be to cope with. He wants to ease the burden in some way, so that she doesn’t feel so alone. That’s why he’s been trawling flat listings, looking for yet another part time job, considering reshaping his life entirely to help her. He’s always been the self-sacrificing type, no matter how many times his loved ones scold him for it. He feels like the world should fall on his shoulders, or he’s doing someone else a disservice.

“Are you going to keep going with uni?” he asks after a long pause in their conversation, both lost in their thoughts. Tonks bites her lip and ducks her head.  
“I don’t know. I can’t even imagine… But then, I can’t imagine leaving, either.”

Remus draws her into his side a little closer, an apologetic half-hug. She sighs, and shrugs him off.  
“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, Remus. I appreciate you’re worried but… I don’t want you thinking you can make it all better by doing more, being more, whatever. This is enough for me.”

Even though she sounds upset and irate as she says it, Remus smiles, nervous but glad of the praise. Her warmth, her kindness, that was what he liked about her. Even if he could never be sure that this was what romantic love felt like… It certainly feels nice to be cared for.

“Alright. Well, I’ll see you later then?” he asks, looking up at the on-campus dorm building. He had stayed here for a year when he first started university. It had been pretty fun, that feeling of community. He worries sometimes that Tonks is missing out on that by hanging out with people 4, 5 years older than her a lot of the time. In the end, though, he wouldn’t say anything - she can make her own decisions.

“Yeah. Later,” she smiles back, pats his arm instead of hugging him or kissing him because she never really kisses him. She’s through the door before Remus can say bye.

-

Cygnus sighs, taps ash off the end of his cigar, and gestures Rudolphus to come in. Seeing that the younger man has some bruising isn’t so surprising; this line of work isn’t always harmonious. Still, he appears to be in a particularly bad mood, though Cygnus doesn’t trouble himself with silly things like other people’s feelings. If they can walk and do his bidding, then it’s quite alright; they aren’t his children. He points a finger away from the glass he curls his hand around, directing Rudolphus to sit down in the chair on the other side of the desk. It’s needless - they’ve done this several times before. Turning his phone screen-side up to check his notifications, he sees nothing he has to deal with right away, turning it over once more to avoid distractions. His steel gaze settles on the man he’ll one day be calling his son-in-law, leaning forward in his chair as he begins to address him.

“Rudolphus. Let me see it, then,” he orders, broadly waving to the desk, waiting for the box to be put down. Rudolphus seems to twitch a little, coughing softly and looking to the side. Well, anyone would be nervous in front of a man like Cygnus, but the lack of immediate reaction irks him - he doesn’t have all day. “Now.”

“Mr Black, with all due respect, Bellatrix -” Cygnus cuts him off with a hand slammed onto the table. He usually keeps his cool in any situation but there has been enough dilly-dallying around. This slowness merits his irritation.  
“I don’t care for your excuses, Lestrange. I have been gracious enough to give you my blessing to marry my oldest daughter, which as we both know, entitles you to a great deal of money and power when I retire and eventually pass. Your current position, your income, relies on my goodwill. You were to show me the ring, as I expect you to propose to my daughter in the coming weeks. This is not a matter of romance and correct timing, this is business.”

Rudolphus tightens his fist, feeling the pain there. If he hadn’t been sidetracked by his idiotic boyfriend then he might have gotten around to the proposal. Of course, he was betting on being in Cygnus’s good graces in time. Once he had gotten the rat to find Sirius, he’d be able to hand him over to Orion, and Orion would probably be so glad to have the brat back under his thumb that he would suggest Cygnus should give Rudolphus a raise.

“Yes, sir,” he grinds out, pressing his lips together as he tried to calm himself against the ice in Cygnus’s glare. To Cygnus’s mind, it’s sheer laziness that Rudolphus hasn’t done as he has been bade, because at this point there is nothing he should value more than ensuring the marriage with Bellatrix goes through. Bellatrix has been a most useful pawn in securing the Lestranges’ bank accounts for Cygnus’s use. After all, one can never have enough money. He points Rudolphus to the door, sending him on his way.  
“I’ll be seeing you in the next 48 hours, with the ring.”

-

Peter gnaws on his lip, looking back and forth at the people walking by. It’s not the quietest area, but he wasn’t the one calling the shots on when it came to this location. He keeps his hands in his pockets, thumbing the outline of the bag tucked under his hoodie. It will be worth it, just like Rudolphus had said. The money he was making was more in a day than he would make at work in a month, and he needed that to get by living in an expensive city like London. Still, it frayed his nerves beyond relief, and he felt constantly on edge. He had looked up bullet proof vests the other day, even though guns were not at all common as far as he knew - he just felt like he was soon to be attacked on all sides, no matter how much he tried to reassure himself.

There was no helping it. This line of work came with its risks.

A man in flannel and a rugged beard, quite fitting in to this area of East London overflowing with hipster sorts, approached Peter and tipped his head down towards him in acknowledgement.  
“Tea?” he asks, and Peter gulps and nods, following the man into a coffee shop and down the stairs meant to go towards the bathrooms. The employees are dealing with the lunch time rush, and they make it to the bathrooms in no time, stepping into the cleaner’s storeroom that clearly reads ‘staff only’.

Peter wastes no time, pulling out the drugs from under his top and pressing them into the man’s hands with a ragged sigh of relief. He’s treated to a querying look, because weakness isn’t something Peter should be showing at a time like this, but god he just wanted to get that thing off him. He’s reminded why this is all worth it when a thick roll of cash held tight with an elastic band is pressed into his hands, quickly stuffing the money in inside pocket of the second coat he had layered on. Summer was a hard time for this, if you decided the most secure way of doing things was to wear about four layers to hide the oddly shaped bags of drugs pressed to his body. At least it meant he wasn’t likely to get pickpocketed, as it would be hard to seamlessly pickpocket through 3 layers. He’d have to get outright mugged for the money at this rate.

“Cheers,” the guy says, clearly waiting for Peter, closer to the door, to get out. As Peter is trotting up the stairs feeling lighter than he has all day, he sees the man - his client, or a link in the chain - stowing the drugs in a loose ceiling tile before putting his apron on for work back on.

As soon as he’s out of the cafe, he feels like running and skipping and hollering at the taste of this temporary freedom, though he holds back for the sake of keeping a low profile. Just as his heart rate is starting to slow, he’s grabbed by the hood and yanked backwards.  
“Wha-”  
“Shut the fuck up and get in,” Rudolphus growls, knowing full well the rat will comply. And comply he does, because Peter gets into the car with a shaky exhale and teary eyes that always threatened to leak over the moment he was scared. Rudolphus glowers at a pedestrian watching them as if they might be concerned that this was some sort of kidnapping, and drives away as soon as the middle aged lady goes scurrying into the nearest store.

-

“W-what’s wrong?” Peter stutters, and Rudolphus grits his teeth, hands tight around the steering wheel. “You’ve got a bruise…” he adds needlessly, causing Rudolphus to snap his head towards him with startling speed. Peter thinks he hears the other’s neck crack.  
“Your stupid friend has got some fucking nerve doing this to me. And now I’ve got to fucking find him and trade him off to Cygnus, before they make me get married to his fucking batshit insane cousin.”

Peter blinks, looks around them as if he’s expecting some kind of context to be given by the glove compartment.  
“Um… Bellatrix?” Peter asks, gulping. Rudolphus scowls, nodding as he turns to face the road again - and not a moment too soon, because they were straying dangerously close to the other lane.  
“Of course Bellatrix. Sirius decided to grow some balls and try and fight me back. Well, he got away, and now this -” he stops, cussing as he’s made to brake at the traffic light.  
“This?” Peter prompts. He hopes this conversation won’t take long, because he really just wants to get back to his flat, take a shower and watch Netflix. The day’s been far too stressful and his stomach hurts with worry.

“I’ve got to propose to Bellatrix, stat. And the only reason I just got a fucking dressing down from her dad is because I’ve been busy trying to find Sirius. Why haven’t you been picking up your phone?” Rudolphus demands, glaring when Peter bumps their hands together as he puts his seatbelt on.  
“I-I’m sorry, I just, there was a deal, and it’s been really difficult getting along the chain because they won’t just use a burner phone, and y-you know I wouldn’t dare to disobey you on purpose, so I-I just, I had to leave my phone at home today because the client was afraid of GPS tracking,” Peter stumbles to get out, and Rudolphus snorts and tosses a lock of hair away from his forehead.  
“Well, maybe if GPS or whatever was the issue, you should have taken off your Apple watch. That’s how I fucking found you. And don’t forget, you only managed to afford that because I set you up to do this work. You’d be shit broke without me.”

Peter quivers, looking down at his fidgeting hands as he wonders what the point of all this is. He didn’t tell Rudolphus yet that Sirius saw them the other day, in the car going past Alice and Frank’s cafe. If he thinks Sirius won’t trust him anymore, then he won’t be useful… And he’ll just get cast aside. He might not be able to make this kind of money anymore, and he’ll still lose all his friends. He needs this. He needs to make himself useful or his luck will run out.

“I’ll find Sirius for you. Just, look - he hasn’t been talking to me lately, so… Is there any chance, y’know, that he knows you’re uh… That you’re talking to me about this stuff?” he asks, looking for a way to shift the blame. Rudolphus narrows his eyes, flicking a glance Peter’s way.  
“Doubt it… Unless the bitch went into my phone. Look, make sure he quits suspecting you, or don’t, just get his god damn location so I can go and get myself back into Cygnus’s good graces. I’m not putting up with another ‘talk’ with that old git.”

The car slows to a halt outside Peter’s flat. For the second time in the past hour, Peter feels like he’s sagging in relief, but he can’t just get out and head in. He has to make sure Rudolphus is done with him first - he needs permission, basically.  
“Well? Get to work. I want information by tomorrow morning.”

Peter hurries to comply, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the car door. Before he’s even fully out of the car, Rudolphus leans over to yank the door shut while starting to drive off, the door catching Peter’s ankle and leaving him to throw himself onto the pavement. Once the car is out of sight, Peter flips it off, inspecting his grazed palms and the hole in his jeans. His ankle throbs, but even that can’t lower his spirits when he feels the money under his hand when he reaches for his keys.

-

Lily sits on the living room floor with a cup of tea in her hands. Her head hurts because of the paint fumes, but it’s worth it to get rid of that god awful dusky pink paint the last renters had decorated the communal areas with. Sirius is asleep on the sofa as the dawn breaks, pale light coming through the windows. They still haven’t got the curtains up, but this way there won’t be any paint on them at least. How he can sleep with that stench in here, she doesn’t know. The stress of moving had her waking up at 5am, when she hates early mornings with a passion. Then again, it does mean she can make the most of the weekend, since she has mounds of coursework to get through, stuff to unpack and this whole situation with Sirius to help with.

She wants to do that latter part soon. The faster they can get Sirius’s stuff out of Rudolphus’s flat, the quicker they can help him get over that nightmare of a relationship. Seeing him so jumpy and uncomfortable, twitching every time someone lifts a hand in his direction, fills her with a fury she can’t put out. As much as Lily and Sirius tend to bicker and argue because of their, ahem, strong personalities, they protect one another - like they would for any of their friends.

It’s been difficult recently. Her and James barely get to spend any meaningful time together, just running around to see Remus and Tonks or Sirius, doing stuff for the flat, working or studying… She misses him. A lot. And she misses Marlene... 

Marlene should get back home today, though. To be honest, they could use her help. Lily could use her help, specifically, to sort through her thoughts, to have someone to talk to about all of it. And Sirius and Marlene have always been a good pair, raising one another’s spirits when nothing else seems to work and Remus isn’t around. As James has matured, he’s been less and less likely to just let Sirius laugh things off when Pads really needs the space and privacy to get through his thoughts. He always wants to try and fix things for Sirius… Hell, they all do. Marlene is better at acting as an impartial party to the issues, not pushing Sirius as much as James does. Hell, James can’t seem to help himself from acting like a mother hen. Lily is starting to think she has the same issue.

“Mornin’,” Sirius mumbles, rolling over with his cheek mushed against the sofa cushion. He wipes at his eyes, sighing and pulling the blanket up closer to his chin like he’s cold. Lily wonders if she should have turned the heating on, but she wants to keep the bills down. After all, they’re saving for the wedding, the honeymoon, the eventual mortgage. She swivels on her space on the floor to face her friend, greeting him with a wan smile.  
“Morning. Didn’t expect to see me in here this early, huh?” she jokes, and he squints at her before pushing his hand under the cushions for his phone.  
“Wha’? What time’sit…” he grumbles, before blinking against the bright light of the screen, groaning.

“Around 6:30,” Lily supplies helpfully, a little late to save Sirius’s eyes. He mutters something unintelligible before he pushes himself to sit up more against the arm of the couch, blowing hair out of his face.  
“And James isn’t up?” he asks as he starts looking for a hair tie, which Lily gives him eventually from her wrist. It’s unusual for Lily to be up early, even more so to be up before James. He’s always been the early riser of the group, and Lily and Sirius had tended to sleep late. Sirius only got out of the habit due to necessity - no one wants a beating first thing in the morning for sleeping past 8.

“Huh? No, his alarm’ll go off soon though. He has work.” Sirius sighs, nods, works on getting off the sofa and pottering over to the kitchen which was connected to the living room and dining room, open plan and spacious. How anyone their age could afford it in London was a mystery if not privy to the fact that James’s family were incredibly rich.

“Where’s the coffee?” Sirius complains, slurring his words with sleepiness. Lily cranes her neck to see past him, pointing to the reusable bag stuffed under the cabinets next to the microwave. Sirius drags out a bag of rice, a huge box of laundry powder and a paper crate of satsumas before he finds the jar of coffee pushed down into the bottom. They still haven’t designated spaces for everything, and a lot just accumulates on the counters and the floor in their bags. Only things that need refrigerated or frozen have found a permanent home.

He’s plugging in the coffee machine after wiping the dust off when he looks back at Lily thoughtfully. Is he a burden, being here? He’s come to see himself as someone obstructive unless he makes himself useful, but then he’s never been one to run around after James, Lily or Remus. Once he was kind of a professional slacker, though he had to make himself worth keeping around when it came to Rudolphus.

Rudolphus…

What had been a split decision is now weighing heavy on him. Sure, he was unhappy there, and for all that he tries to excuse what Rudy has done to him, he knows it’s not right. However, his life has been predictable for a while now, even if that means predictably horrible. His sense of adventure, the feeling of being confident enough to do something, anything, with himself, they died out of self preservation in a way, so that he couldn’t try and fly the coop out of some desire or feeling that he deserves more. The fear of what would happen to him if he did try and escape had been debilitating, but now… Now he’s jumped straight to the stage where he has to consider, what now?

He never got this far in his fantasies. He has no idea what to do. He ran to Remus straight away, even though he was still hurt and angry over the pregnancy, and now he’s sleeping on the couch at James and Lily’s. What had he even wanted from Remus, anyway? He hadn’t had the chance to process it all yet, and still, he had punched Rudolphus in the face for what? Remus’s honour? It was pointless… 

He would never tell Remus why he had punched Rudolphus in the face - so far he had brushed over that part. He’s too afraid of the connotations of that, but also afraid of Remus feeling responsible. His burden has been shared over the group so many times throughout the ill-fated relationship, he wants to stop worrying them all now. If he can just get back his stuff…

Maybe he should take matters into his own hands. It hadn’t gone so badly when he had done that a couple days ago, after all - he’d escaped. He could handle this, right?

“I was wondering when you want to go and get your stuff?” Lily asks, breaking him from his thoughts. Sirius blanches a little, feeling like she read his mind, and turns to her with an awkward expression that has her raising a brow. “If you were thinking you could do this on your own, then you’re crazy. I’m not letting you go back there alone.” She swallows a little roughly and tucks her hair behind her ears, and Sirius is surprised to see her eyes filling with tears.

“You just got out of there, Sirius… I don’t want you to go back. I don’t want you to be in danger again.”

Stirring his coffee, Sirius comes to sit in front of her on the floor with a small, reassuring smile.  
“Whatever happens, I’ll be okay. If he tries anything I can just tell him I’ll set my short-arse friend on him and she’ll bite his ankles,” he teases, feeling relieved when she smiles and laughs, the sound slightly watery.

“Fuck you,” she giggles, finishing her tea and putting her mug down. Sirius takes the first sip of his coffee and jerks back as it burns his tongue, making her laugh even more. James walks in as coffee dribbles out of his mouth and onto his shirt, looking at his best friend and fiance questioningly, a smile on his sleepy face.

“Um… Good morning?” he snorts, and Sirius finally swallows the coffee and lets out a dog-like whine, tongue sticking out idiotically as he waves his hands in front of it to cool it. Lily, by this point, is on her back on the floor clutching her stomach, tears rolling down her face for a different reason altogether. It seems the situation is a little brighter than it had been just minutes before, for which Sirius is glad, but his tongue does hurt.

He wonders if Remus will come over today.

-

“Hey Tonks!”

Tonks looks up from her phone, sitting in the cafe just off campus. She came here to neaten up her notes and phone the doctor for the antenatal appointment, but in the end all she’s done is scroll through tumblr and wish she had brought her skateboard back from Oxford. Across the table is Peter, smiling a little awkwardly at her holding two cups of tea. She smiles back, shuffling her stuff out of the way.  
“Hey Pete. Didn’t think I’d see you out here,” she greets, and Peter shrugs sheepishly as he sits down across from her, pushing a cup towards her. Her eyes light up - she had just finished her last cup. “Oh, thanks!”  
“No problem,” Peter laughs, checking his phone with a slight grimace before pocketing it again.  
“Missed calls from the girlfriend? Or your mum?” Tonks jokes, and Peter huffs.  
“Nah, work stuff. I dropped by to return a textbook I took out of the library like, over a year ago... But I ended up running back out because they wanted me to pay a fine.”

He puts the textbook down on the table gingerly and pats the laminate cover.  
“Guess I own this now.”

Tonks snorts, shaking her head at him. She doesn’t hang out with Peter like, ever. They never meet up outside of if she tags along to hang out with the rest of Rem’s friend group, and she doesn’t think they’ve ever had a conversation just the two of them. Still, it’s nice that he bothers to come talk to her when bumping into her by chance - it makes her feel a little bit more accepted in the Marauders, when she felt more like a satellite of it, orbiting around with a degree of unbridgeable isolation.

“Did you hear about Sirius?” Peter asks, slightly muted tone to match the way he leans over the table a little more. Tonks supposes it might be a secret or something, so she mimics him, leaning closer with her forearms braced on the crumby tabletop, nodding.  
“That he got out? Yeah, he came crashing into Rem’s flat straight after, totally fucked up,” Tonks explains, gesturing a hand out the window in the rough direction Rem’s flat is probably in. Peter seems to light up at that, raising his eyebrows in shock.  
“Really? I mean, it makes sense he went to Remus I guess… But I thought you were staying there?”

Tonks frowns, trying to understand what Peter means. It makes sense? Well, yeah, Remus and Sirius are really close, have been since high school from what Tonks understands of it. And while she ribs Remus about having a sort of fancy for Sirius, she doesn’t really mean it. Just because Rem used to have a crush on Sirius doesn’t mean he still does. After all, he’s committing to her now - they’re going to be parents together. The idea of it is mind boggling, but she tries to believe that he loves her, not just as a friend but as more.

“Makes sense? Yeah, they are mates after all,” she laughs awkwardly, glancing aside. “I was, yeah. I’ll probably go back there in a couple days, just need some space.” Peter blinks, seeming surprised. And why is he so curious about this, anyway? Wouldn’t he know about this from the others?  
“Did he make you leave for Sirius to stay?” Peter gasps, and Tonks gets the notion that he’s trying to stir the pot. Even though she doesn’t want to buy into that, it does work, making her shift in her seat with insecurity. Sirius isn’t there just now, is he? No. She’s being stupid, Peter wouldn’t try to start drama among his friends.  
“No, not at all. Sirius is staying with James and Lily,” she mumbles, eyes narrowing minutely at the boy across from her who looks like she just saved his spine. “I thought you would know that,” she adds, suddenly looking around them. Is she missing something? Is something going on?

“Ohhh,” Peter breathes, nodding. “Yeah, I just thought, with you saying that… I mean, I guess I just got the wrong idea. Y’know how Sirius can be, always wants what other people have got - that’s why we love him! He’s always been all over Remus, is all. Maybe he’s cut that out now that you’re, y’know,” he points down to her stomach, and Tonks flinches. Why is Peter saying all this? Even though he seems to be joking around, there’s some truth in it, and his tone is a little too forced to seem sincere or kind. Why would he suggest something like that about his friends?

“Anyway, I’d better get going!” Peter exclaims, jumping up from his seat and patting his coat down. “Enjoy your tea.”  
“Peter, wait-!” Tonks starts, seeing the textbook left on the table in front of her and his unfinished tea. Suddenly he’s in such a hurry. Before she can say anything further, Peter is out of the cafe, phone lifting to his ear. She has the feeling that something is terribly wrong.

A little later, after ruminating on her unease, her eye is caught by the textbook Peter left. She pulls it a little closer to her and flips the cover open, a slip of paper fluttering out onto the floor without her noticing. She looks at the stamps on the library slip with a sigh, feeling lost, and then more confused when she sees Peter’s name on it, but not from a year ago - from today.

“What…?” she mutters, rubbing the back of her neck as she straightens up. A man in the table next to her taps her arm and she jumps, turning to him with a glare before seeing he’s holding out a bit of paper for her, crumpled and scrawled in blue biro.  
“Sorry! It’s just, you dropped this,” the man explains, and Tonks takes the paper with a frown.  
“This isn’t mine.” She shakes her head, trying to return it to the man who just holds his hands up.  
“It fell out of your textbook.”

Tonks hesitates, bringing the slip closer to her again and glancing over it.  
“Oh. Thanks.”

A phone number is written in spiky print, under the name ‘Tom Riddle’. Tonks sighs, looking at the textbook again. What on earth is Peter up to?

Some way away from the cafe, Peter enters the tube station and pauses just after the gates to keep cell service. A voice greets him on the other end of the line.  
“I know where he is,” Peter breathes, hanging up as soon as he finishes and heading down the escalator. He doesn’t realise he forgot the textbook, and the paper inside it, until he’s getting off the train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alsdkjskjd I'm the worst I'm sorryyyy i'll try update faster T_T


	7. Update

Hi everyone

Recently I know there has been a long absence from me in this fic. I decided now to post something here to let you know what's going on.

In light of JK Rowling's recent comments about the trans community I have some doubts about my ability to continue this fic as a trans ally. While I love the world of Harry Potter and the many characters that have been a part of my life for a long time, I'm struggling to find a way to meaningfully disentangle the material from her views which are now more transparent than ever. Having shown herself as a TERF, along with parts of the Harry Potter stories I only now come to understand including the antisemitism, racism and also the lack of representation many groups have faced, I'm losing hope that I can continue to give love to these characters and create my own stories with them without showing complacency towards her misguided and harmful views.

While I've yet to decide if I'll continue this fic, or post the many others I have written and queued up, I wanted to let you all know that I am taking my time to decide what I want to do from now on. I hope you can respect this and continue to have patience.

It Goes On is a fic with 3 trans characters and several non binary characters as the story comes together, and I don't yet know if including my own trans representation through fanfiction is enough for me to feel at peace with participating in this fandom. While the fandom themselves have always proven to be a second home for me, I still find it hard to reconcile that with the views JKR has expressed. Being a nonbinary person myself with several trans friends I feel keenly my responsibility to focus my efforts to better the world around us and our society.

If any of you have felt hurt by the things said recently by JKR, or are feeling alienated from the world of Harry Potter that you once loved, then please feel free to reach out to me on the comments here, and I can give you details for my other social media where you can reach me easily. I'll always be here for anyone that needs it, even if Hogwarts doesn't feel like home to you anymore.

In mostly unrelated news I am also working now on my own original piece of writing that has several similar themes to Harry Potter but aims to be inclusive and written from an informed and kinder viewpoint. If anyone wants to hear about that, I will post my social media accounts in my profile description so you can get updates!

Thank you all for your patience and compassion. See you all later, and I hope you're all staying safe in this really difficult time.

**Author's Note:**

> If you noted anything triggering that I didn't catch in the notes at the beginning, drop a comment and I'll update tags and notes accordingly!  
> Thank you for reading ^^ I'm going to try and update this weekly or fortnightly.


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